Full text open access link to this chapter on publisher Palgrave Macmillan/Springer’s site: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-37435-7_2.
Or download Chapter 2 from this website RichardSamans.net: 43-page PDF
Cite this chapter: Samans, R. (2024). Liberal Economics’ Track Record on Inclusion, Sustainability and Resilience. In: Human-Centred Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37435-7_2
Abstract
This chapter summarizes the important historical contribution of liberal economics in accelerating economic growth and reducing poverty, while examining its profound and persistent difficulty in responding effectively to societal demands for greater social inclusion, environmental sustainability and resilience to major shifts and shocks. It traces a growing body of evidence and criticism that modern economics may be constitutionally incapable of addressing these considerations adequately, particularly since its theoretical models generally treat them as afterthoughts, matters assumed to resolve naturally over time on the strength of a rising tide of national income generated by economic growth. It then assesses the state of reform in each of these three respects, concluding that efforts to date have been essentially aspirational, procedural or incremental and thus are destined to fall well short of what would be required to fulfil the corresponding goals humanity’s political leaders have set in multilateral agreements, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Paris climate and Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement targets, and objectives of the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work. Despite the widespread call for replacement of “neoliberalism” and the Washington Consensus, a viable theory of more fundamental and sufficient change has yet to emerge from within the economics community. This will require a deeper critique and reformulation of liberal economic doctrine, starting with a re-examination of its first principles.
Important details for the book Human-Centred Economics by Richard Samans
For more details, see the publisher’s page for the book, or its main page on this website, RichardSamans.net
Cite the book as follows: Samans, Richard. Human-Centred Economics: The Living Standards of Nations. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. | © ILO: International Labour Organization 2024. | Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. | This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland. | The responsibility for opinions expressed in this book rests solely with the author (Richard Samans), and its publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO or its constituents of the opinions expressed herein. |
Published: 03 December 2023 | Print ISBN 978-3-031-37434-0 | Online ISBN 978-3-031-37435-7
Open Access This book or chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. | The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.