Some Social Economics Concepts for Future Research

Under the guidance of a recrudescent nineteenth century ideology, the governance of the global economy has been profoundly altered in the past three decades; indeed, a veritable Great Capitalist Restoration has emerged. It is important to view the transitioning economies and emerging market economies as part of this massive shift in governance. The concept of economic surplus offers a useful perspective on the political economy of governance regimes. Karl Polanyi’s post-Marxian view of lives and livelihood provides important insight into the nature of the Great Capitalist Restoration, its ideologically-driven impetus, and its eventual foundering on the shoals of instability, insecurity, inequality, and social and ecological unsustainability. The ineluctable crisis of the Great Capitalist Restoration provides another opportunity to construct a viable democratic economic future, one that avoids the pitfalls that brought down the corporate-welfare state, and offers more than inauthentic, joyless commodity consumption. To build the Road to this Future, we will need a powerful heterodox economic analysis of agency and governance, guided by a vision of an economy which is subordinate to the lives it provisions.