Economism

Description

Richard Norgaard:

"The word economism has been around for over a century. Vladimir Lenin introduced the term in 1899 to refer to social movements that sought to improve the wages and working conditions of laborers without also seeking the overthrow of capitalism.

Antonio Gramsci expanded its meaning, reserving its sharpest use to characterize the work of scholars who saw economic issues as independent of other social spheres—which would include that of most non-Marxist economists.

Gramsci attributes a religious character to the term, an indication of his disregard for both economism and religion. Over the past few decades, the term has experienced a revival. Environmental theologian John B. Cobb, Jr., used the term to denote a new era of Western history following nationalism and Christianism.

Ecological and heterodox economists use the term as an indictment of how neoliberal economics reduces all social relations to market logic. To such economists, neoliberal economics is merely reactionary politics disguised as value-free science. Economism replaces belief in God’s control over human destiny with the belief that markets control our fate. The term also appears in critiques of development, particularly when international and national economic experts have advanced markets at the expense of democracy and cultural values in developing countries." (http://www.greattransition.org/publication/the-church-of-economism-and-its-discontents)