Policy Development

The cycle of economic evolution proceeds from institutions to policy. Policymaking in a planetary economy of the future would be inclusive and participatory, consistent with a directive of widespread prosperity. When we treat the economy and nature as coevolving systems—rather than thinking of the economy as a mechanical analogue divorced from nature—significant implications for policy development arise. Policy development must be adaptive and evolutionary, a process of selection among many small bets, most of which will fail. It is the embrace of small failures that eventually will lead to the big success of long-term stability and prosperity. Policymaking therefore must become goal-directed, and the market must be seen not as an end in itself, free from government ‘meddling’, but as a powerful engine of economic change, with policy as the guidance system.

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Notes

These have been blamed for recent precipitous declines in insect abundance, threatening the very pollination basis of agriculture itself . See Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys (2019).

Oil and gas companies, who buried their knowledge of the climate threat in the 1980s, did so because the market in which they operated allowed them to. Although a moral case for transnational corporations to act in the public interest can be made, as Bill McKibben has argued in multiple news articles during the 2010s, the ultimate responsibility lies with government for erecting the system in the first place.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Economist, San Rafael, CA, USA Fraser Murison Smith

1. Fraser Murison Smith