The ‘Dismal Science’ – Still? Economics and Human Flourishing

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to evaluate critically standard economic theory from the point of view of self-realization ethics and psychology. In doing so, there is considerable reliance on Abraham Maslow's well-known theory of personality development. According to his penetrating insight, it is insecurity that keeps a person trapped in a world of materialism – be it a desperate survival mentality, a preoccupation with excessive sexuality, or an unabashed and omnipresent consumerism. Feeling secure, on the other hand, opens the gates to psychological health and real personal autonomy. Over time there has accumulated a considerable amount of empirical evidence supporting such a Maslowian insecurity-materialism link. The present paper surveys the problem of economic insecurity, especially the anxiety of job loss. Since there is ample evidence that, in today's globalized world, this problem is quite serious and increasingly widespread, it would follow that Maslowian personality theory predicts a large part of the population finding it increasingly hard to embark on a life of personal flourishing. Economic theory, with its traditional emphasis on competitive markets for both output and input, its unflagging support of unregulated international trade and outsourcing, its tacit consent for the new lean, mean, and flexible corporation, and its purely instrumental treatment of work and workers, for all these reasons, must share much of the blame for what appears to be a massive stunting of personality development. In this regard, the dismal science of the nineteenth century may still warrant the same designation today.