From Economizing to Ecologizing: Emerging an Integrated Perspective

Abstract

The complex wickedness of many of today's social and ecological problems calls for more integral thinking to bring better alignment between human activities, particularly economic and business activities, and ecological realities. This paper integrates emerging knowledge about the differences between right (holistic) and left (analytic) brain thinking, Indigenous wisdom, and the physics, biology, complexity, and chaos sciences into ideas for a new economic orthodoxy. Doing so offers the potential to shift away from today's predominantly economizing mindsets towards integrated ecologizing mindsets that more holistically and realistically represent the world. Drawing on recent work that articulates six core values for a lifeaffirming economic orthodoxy, this paper explores that shift away from business as usual with today's dominant neoliberal economics towards an integrated ecologizing socio-ecology. The need is to translate economizing mindsets associated with neoliberal economics into ecologizing ones through ideas that prioritize stewardship, collective value, cosmopolitan localism, regenerativity, relationality, and equitable markets.