It really is appalling the level of education these days. People just don’t seem to get the most basic - and most important - things about the world we live in. Of course, we do slightly differ over what it is that people are ignorant about:
The issues about which most people live in ignorance are, by contrast, matters of life and death.
I don’t blame anyone for not knowing. This is a collective failure: a crashing lapse in education, that is designed for a world in which we no longer live. The way we are taught misleads us about who we are and where we stand.
We agree so far. Monbiot then goes on to tell us that economics is wrong and ecology is where it’s at. Something that would carry more weight as a critique if his knowledge of economics included a little more finesse. Or even knowledge:
In mainstream economics, for example, humankind is at the centre of the universe, and the constraints of the natural world are either invisible or marginal to the models.
The entire subject starts with the observation that human beings want lots of things but we happen to be in a universe of scarce resources with which to sate them. That concept of scarcity is central to the entire intellectual edifice. In fact, items for which there is no scarcity are non-economic goods. Quite how the very subject that studies the allocation of scarce goods is not cognisant of resource constraints is difficult to understand.
In an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in competition with others.
We are only solely in competition with others for things which are in fixed supply. Where we cooperate we manage to increase supply. This is one of the arguments in favour of economic growth - we cooperate, increase supply and so are not trapped in a zero sum competition.
Large numbers of people now reject this approach to learning – and to life. A survey reported this week suggests that six out of 10 people in the UK want the government to prioritise health and wellbeing ahead of growth when we emerge from the pandemic. This is one of the most hopeful results I have seen in years.
If only those basic concepts of economics were understood. The assumption is that humans desire to, strive to, maximise their utility. This includes such concepts as health and the limited meaning of wellbeing used by Monbiot. It is also that larger sense of wellbeing - whatever it is that the individual concerned thinks maximises their wellbeing in this world of constrained and scarce resources to apply to that wellbeing.
This is the time for a Great Reset.
Which is where we come back to agreeing with Monbiot. Yes, let us have that great reset. We could start by in insisting those advocating a change in the economy, in the teaching of economics, gain a clue concerning the subject under discussion. Wouldn’t that be a nice change, a nice place to start the conversation - dealing only with these who already grasped the basics?