Sublime

of larger society. So that’s a very old battle in human history between the self-serving stories of an elite and the stories that can actually help serve a broader society. Part of what we’ve seen in our economics is that elites previously used to appeal to gods, to how our ancestors did it, to the natural order, etc., to make credible their

nos responsables politiques ne peuvent prendre aucune décision sans avoir officiellement consulté nos économètres et enregistré leurs prédictions. Au niveau de l’Union européenne ou du FMI aussi, leurs calculs sont tenus en très haute estime et leurs conclusions guident ouvertement la plupart des choix politiques.

But in the context of today’s social and ecological crises, how can this single, narrow metric still command such international attention?

The global market economy may eventually raise living standards everywhere – even its critics should wish that – but it is surely only ideologues who can deny that it has brought economic insecurity to many, many millions. The precariat is in the front ranks, but it has yet to find the Voice to bring its agenda to the fore.

The economy bottomed out in the second half of 2002, and in 2003 it grew by more than 8 percent. Contrary to the worries of many who had expected that the country would revert to its hyperinflationary ways, consumer prices rose less than 4 percent in 2003, compared with a 40 percent increase the previous year, thanks to a firm hand on the monetary

the dominance of the economist’s perspective on the world has only spread, even into the language of public life. In hospitals and clinics worldwide, patients and doctors have been recast as customers and service-providers. In fields and forests on every continent, economists are calculating the monetary value of ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem