A new journal issue explores how to create a new moral political economy that could ensure ethical flourishing for all.
Over the past several years, INET Oxford researchers have participated in a working group on ‘New Moral Political Economy’ organised by the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Behavioural Sciences (‘CASBS’) at Stanford University and chaired by Professor Margaret Levi. The working group brought together leading scholars from economics, political science, sociology, law, history, policy, philosophy, and other behavioural and social sciences.
The group’s work has just been published in a special issue of Dædalus, the open access Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The special issue begins from the recognition that capitalist democracy needs rethinking and renewal. Faced with mounting climate crises and systemic discrimination, its contributors attempt to reimagine ways to ensure ethical flourishing for all. In eleven main essays and twenty-two responses, the authors raise questions about how to create supportive social movements that prioritise collective, equitable, and respectful responsibility for care of the earth and its people.
“The goal of this issue of Dædalus is to highlight some important ideas about how to create a better world. Our collective task is the establishment of a political economic framework that offers a revised form of capitalist democracy, one that ensures the flourishing of all, whose morality truly represents commonly held and cherished values, and yet recognizes and respects difference.” - Professor Margaret Levi and Dr Zachary Ugolnik - ‘Mobilizing in the Interest of Others’, Dædalus, Winter 2023
Included in the special issue is a piece by INET Oxford’s Executive Director, Professor Eric Beinhocker. Beinhocker draws on Natasha Iskander and Nichola Lowe’s concept of “biophilic institutions’ to explore what it might mean to make economic markets ‘biophilic’ - that is, compatible with life flourishing on Earth.
“Earth’s previous five mass extinction events saw losses of over 75 percent of species. It is unlikely that human civilization, let alone anything like a modern economy, would survive an anthropogenically induced sixth event. It is biophilic or bust.” Professor Eric Beinhocker - ‘Biophillic Markets’, Dædalus, Winter 2023
