Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law
Research Article · Pages 1-13
Economics Against the Human Order
Due to their misunderstanding of the nature of economics, mainstream American economists have become unwitting agents of destruction not only to the US but also to human civilization, largely because of American power and influence. The country often dubbed as “the only superpower” is richer than it has ever been. Its aggregate economy does not suffer from a lack of resources. For many years, mainstream American economists have neglected, and still appear to neglect, ecological and social interdependence by treating all goods equally, without considering the various ways in which the production of such goods depends on the rest of the world. By doing so, American economists have reduced all values to that of private profit-making. Many American economists have employed efficiency, productivity, and profit without a social and ecological context. As a result, they inadvertently look as if they have become antisocial and anti-ecological. This paper contends that such perverted and even contemptible aspects of mainstream American economists provide the counterparts in other countries with a valuable lesson to "learn reversely (or oppositely)" from the superpower. Additionally, it behooves all thinking persons, regardless of nationalities or ethnicities, to ask whether technology is acting like a foreign body in our socio-economic organism. Lastly, not least, what are the criteria for acceptable and unacceptable economic and technological growth toward what kind of goals?