An Opportunity for Integrative Frameworks?
- Revision of Prevailing Worldviews through the Lens of the Economic Turmoil
The notion of the global financial crisis has become a cliché. The problem is often addressed as a managerial puzzle to which economic experts ought to find a quick solution, or as a symptom of an evolving global cataclysm which, according to a linear and deterministic understanding of history, cannot be avoided. In principle, both approaches could be valid. Nevertheless, in this paper we will advance another perspective, which tries to avoid reductionist and linear reasoning, and instead opts for a more integrative approach. The term “integrative” refers both to putting together what seem to be divergent methodologies, theories and practices, as well as to using a more complete, wide-ranging, holistic or “integral” perspective.
Many experts and other commentators of the global financial upheaval have conceptualized it as a negative series of events – a crisis. But what if the ongoing economic turmoil is not a crisis, but a critical juncture in a larger process of transformation? What if this process of transformation is accelerating and intensifying to the point where it can trigger a revision of prevailing worldviews on which the societal order in industrial countries is based? And what if the causal effect is recursive in the sense that the transformation creates adaptive pressure on the prevailing worldviews, and the worldview revision in turn creates pressure on the dynamics of the critical juncture?
Our contribution to the symposium will be a worldview analysis of economic theories and of how their assumptions relate to the current (and possible future) economic turmoil. In the first part of the paper, the concept of “worldview” deriving from culture is explained and applied to the evolving financial events. The second part of the paper analyzes core assumptions of the dominating economic paradigm – neoclassical economics – and traces the diffusion of these beliefs into other disciplines and schools of thought such as neorealism in the study of international relations.
The third part of the paper is dedicated to the question of paradigm shift that includes but is not limited to revisions of the assumptions that underlie the prevailing worldviews. The paper will contain concrete proposals for revisions, which may innovate the study of economics and reduce the likelihood of triggering economic turmoil in the future. The work of integral thinkers is combined with theories by Thomas Kuhn and Martin Marcussen in the studied context of the global financial transformation. In the final part of the paper attention is placed on the methodological foundation of the prevailing paradigms and suggestions are made for making the process of acquiring knowledge more secure. The methodological considerations are to a significant extent inspired by the work of Alec Schaerer who agreed to the inclusion of his thoughts in this paper.
On a deeper level, the paper addresses the linkages between inner and outer phenomena, which are usually neglected in the scientific literature. It seems plausible to argue that the outer features of the economic crisis can be traced back to inner shortcomings on several levels, including the levels of mind, emotions, and will power. If these linkages between inner and outer phenomena are real, human beings are not victims of the crisis, but potent actors able to influence economic events by changing their alignment (inner configuration) in relation to external events. In this context, the integration of theory and practice is critical: the task is not only to think about things, but doing them.
