To the degree she is making the point about distinguishing between a market economy versus a market society, I think she may have something to offer. But I think she has caricatured the economic way of thinking. I sense the creation of a straw man. Also, I find it curious that she uses the monoculture of science and its triumph over Medieval religion (something most intellectuals celebrate) as a parallel for the rising monoculture of economics (which she appears to be setting up as unholy development.)
She is right about stories. The Medieval world had a story, and the scientific empirical analysis of the world (including examining how things work at the molecular and atomic level) unraveled and reshaped many aspects of the story. The analysis of micro(atomic/molecular)-economic behavior and empirical analysis is a threat to many present-day ideologies and philosophies… “stories,” if you will … that make unempirical macro-level truth claims about the human condition.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not suggesting that economics is the product of sinless actors without ideological constraint. There are challenges. But I worry that Michaels sounds like … borrowing the “Medieval church versus science” construct … a priest of the old order whose metanarrative is under siege. I know I see this in many conversations about the interaction between theology and economics. I’ve ordered her book, and I’ll be curious to see what she says.
Her book is: Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything
Leave a Reply