Responsible Thinking: a new way of thinking in the 21st century

From an immature economist to a responsible economist: an 8th way to think like a 21st century economist

“Economists, when they talk about skin in the game, are only concerned with the second.” (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

“Economists are humanists. They need very little mathematics” (Christian Felber)

In his book “Skin in the game: Hidden Asymmetries in daily Life”, Taleb states that “skin in the game” is “having an exposure to real world, and paying a price for its consequences, good or bad”. However, most of the economists of the past centuries did not suffer for their mistakes, but their consequences caused a lot of problems for a great majority of people and for the planet where we live.

These mistakes could be classified into two big categories; ignorance and bad faith. Conversely, the main aims of education during our childhood try to avoid this. Therefore, a sign of immaturity in adulthood occurs when ignorance and disinformation (post-truth, propaganda, fakes…) dominate our behaviour in living together.

Nowadays, many economists are still in this immature phase. On the one hand, they have not acquired a critical sense to question the bad economic education that they have received, so they continue to be immersed in ignorance. On the other hand, they do recognize these flaws, but they continue to follow the same path as they get certain benefits for it without any of their consequences. This could be an issue of egocentrism or narcissism with a big lack of empathy. In this case, the thin line between pathological and criminal behaviour should be resolved by psychologists and judges.

To turn the immature situation of some economists around, a new way of thinking is needed. This new path could be built around the concept of “responsibility”. With this idea, the challenge is to integrate the “skin in the game” rule and some tools for dissipating our ignorance. The virtues of justice and wisdom will support the way towards “responsibility”. Both ways are complementary.

Having a certain ignorance of economic issues is not itself a problem. It’s not possible to know everything. Being humble enough to ask someone else or to take a step for one’s learning is a sign of responsibility. However, if, during our educational phase, our parents, the predominant worldview of society, or our economics teachers did teach the wrong things because they thought they were correct, how could we have known?

Nowadays, general education, which is often influenced by the market, lobbies, and many other factors, focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths). Some departments for education add Arts (STEAM,) but only a few of them add Humanities (SHTEAM). Economics is a social science and the H from Humanities, as Felber points out, should be its main framework. However, Economics has been infected by this focus on STEM which is trying to dominate the agenda and policy of many education departments. Humanities and social sciences have different disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, literature, linguistics, and history… and they are losing prominence for the seed of humanism.

Environmental Economists say that the economy depends on Planet Earth and not vice versa. Similarly, we could say that mathematics is embedded in human language. Numbers alone don’t mean anything. They need the help of human language to be meaningful for us. Therefore, the triangle above will guide us through the foundations for thinking, in a general way, like a citizen with responsible wellbeing and, in a certain way, like a responsible economist who due to contextual circumstances has dominated the previous centuries.

Perhaps the key to our economic immaturity comes from giving so much importance to equations, integrals, and algorithms and having forgotten the importance of narratives, metaphors, and paradoxes. We maybe couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

• Critical Thinking. Responsible economists will question the narrative we live by. They will question, in a similar way to Rethinking Economics, the studies of the economy that most universities teach. Being a responsible economist means getting out of the way if they believe that this path goes in the wrong direction.
• Systems Thinking. Responsible economists start to dance with systems. Through this dance, they will understand the complex relationships between the parts and the whole. They will start to think outside the box, those metaphors (the invisible hand) and frames of reference which are so reduced that don’t let them see beyond. Responsible economists will have to choose new metaphors, but perhaps, they will choose them in a more humanistic (visible heart) or more environmentalist (living organism) way. Being a responsible economist means being sensitive to context and relationships.
• Paradoxical Thinking. Responsible economists are prudent. They consider the contradictions and paradoxes that they find so often in society. After that, they start to act or put the skin on the game. They can collaborate to create or innovate, so changes or new values can emerge for solving the issue at hand. Life is not a zero-sum game. Being responsible is recognizing that we all travel in this spaceship called “Earth” and if we want to be alive, to have harmony among us, or simply to develop ourselves, we need a value-driven humanism.

The oval in the “Responsible Thinking” triangle, where the three elements begin to mix and integrate, is the most synergistic area. The concept “ecotone” from the environmental sciences could be an excellent metaphor. An ecotone is a transition area among different biomes. It is a place where ecologies are in tension, but paradoxically, in this area there occurs the “edge effect” where a great exchange of energy takes place. This effect produces great wealth, both at the level of the number of species and at that population density, hence it is considered a zone of great biological interest. Language can transfer this simile to our figure and to the particular case of the responsible economist who is closer to the social sciences. We can imagine the meeting of the three thinking styles (critical, systemic, and paradoxical) as an area of tension, but with a great exchange of energy. The effect produced in this zone is of great humanistic interest and could help the wellbeing of society and the Planet.

In summary, being a responsible economist, as opposed to an immature economist, means thinking responsibly. That implies the use of critical, paradoxical, and systems thinking for global wellbeing (personal, social, and environmental).

• Author: Jesús Martín. Transdisciplinary researcher. He usually writes some posts for “Autonomía y Bienvivir”

Linkedin: Here

Twitter: @ResWellbeing & @BienestarRespon

* This essay was my proposal to the challenge and contest proposed by Kate Raworth and Rethinking Economics about a possible 8th way of thinking about the economy in the 21st century. The proposal, “From an immature economist to a responsible economist”, could also be extrapolated to politics or some other jobs but in general, it could be the attributes of a citizen of the World. I started to develop the idea of “Responsible Thinking” through the post “The paradox of well-being: when ill-being helps us in our way” and continued with the text of the educational game “Less is Max, probably the best educational game in the world for the wellbeing of society and the planet”.

The graphic above was developed by this author.