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					 Beijing Law Review, 2012, 3, 121-127  http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/blr.2012.33016 Published Online September 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/blr)  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities  Vincenzo Ruggiero   Department of Criminology and Sociology, Middlesex University Hendon Campus, London, UK.  Email: V.Ruggiero@mdx.ac.uk    Received May 14th, 2012; revised June 18th, 2012; accepted June 28th, 2012  ABSTRACT  Economic initiative, by definition, is a human and social effort devoted to the collective wellbeing. However, economic  development in general, along with more or less measurable benefits, may cause harm to people and the environment.  This aspect tends to be obscured by advocates of the currently predominant philosophy (or ideology) known as  neo-liberalism. This paper sets off with a critical analysis of the axioms of neo-liberalism focusing on the variab le risk  and on the harm provoked by economic development on the environment. Straddling legality and illegality, harmful  economic conduct is then equated to a specific form of white collar crime, while an attempt is made to trace in the his-  tory of economic thought itself the embryo of a destructive rationale. After considering how harm to individuals and the  environment is hidden through ideological strategies, the paper looks at some refreshing proposals to turn the threats of  economic development into human oppo rtunities.    Keywords: Neo-Liberalism; Risk; Law; Economy; Valueless Lives  1. Axioms and Risk  As an ideology, neo-liberalism serves to legitimise eco-  nomic conduct by conferring on it the character of inevi-  tability, of a divine project aimed at the happiness of all.  To hamper such project is tantamount to sacrilege, and  governments still convinced that their role consists in  civilizing the economy and the human interactions this  entails had better adhere to the new ideo logy lest they are  doomed. The political sphere is required to forg e its own  philosophy through the concepts and axioms prompted  by the economy, making  society suitable to it, rath er than  the other way round. The marriage between economics  and politics is so harmonious that representatives of the  two realms swap functions and arenas, and have become  by now perfectly interchangeable [1]. Entrepreneurs be-  come politicians while the latter, after their mandate ex-  pires, find comfortable positions within business boards  of directors.  Neo-liberal ideology posits that a 2 - 3 point growth  per year is indispensable, even for societies which have  reached a satisfying degree of wellbeing, to continue to  enjoy such wellbeing. A corresponding increase in con-  sumptions, inevitably, has to be stimulated. Whether per-  manent growth manifests dysfunctional aspects, for hu-  mans and their environment, should not concern us, be-  cause, so go other axioms: a) markets are perfectly able  to self-regulate; b) capital flows withou t hesitation where  its utility is maximum; c) risks are always calculable [2].   As for the enormous mismatch between technological  and economic potentials and the actual life conditions of  the population of the earth, the “trickle down” principle  will soon display its healing capacity. Little attention is  given to the growing signs that the use of natural re-  sources implied by an economic model based on infinite  development is unsustainable, and that the time left to  change it is shrinking dramatically.  The ecological footprint of the planet in 2008 was  close to 1.3, namely the earth was using all its own  natural resources plus a third of those of another planet…  If this tendency continues unaltered, the estimate is that  in 2050 the earth will need an entire second planet in  order to satisfy its use of natural resources, includi ng th e  capacity to absorb or recycle the waste thus produced…  If developing countries came close to the levels of con- sumption of the EU, 2.1 planets would be necessary. If  the entire world reached the levels of consumption of the  US, the earth would need the resources of four more  planets [2].  Each society identifies a “threshold of catastrophe”  which derives from its perception of the utility brought  by risky behaviour. Where this threshold is located is  highly controversial. Societies and economies of subsis-  tence, for example, may be highly opposed to risky deci-  sions because they are constantly threatened by the loss  of crops, the uncertainty of their productive system, and  ultimately by famine. Similarly, in monetary economies,  entrepreneurs who hold limited finances may be deemed  Copyright © 2012 SciRes.                                                                                  BLR  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities  122  less prepared to run risks than their colleagues who own  more funds. On the other hand , one may also  suggest that  lack and uncertainty may lead to riskier behaviour as a  way of “gambling” one’s way towards abundance and a  secure future. In this sense, it is those endowed with  fewer resources that might be prepared to run higher  risks. In brief, the perception of risk and catastrophe is  not only based on scientifically shared calculus, but is  also heavily dependen t on subjectivity.  In the seventeenth century risk was associated with  gambling, which en tails simultaneous possib ilities of loss  and gains. Slowly, gains vanished from the equation,  while the negative outcomes of gambling were linked to  taboos and sins. The major moments of choice were  signposted with danger. Later, the public politicised the  subject, while scientists pretended to be neutral [3]. This  politicisation of the subj ect matter occurs because society  no longer runs risks in pursuit of what is necessary, but  of what is superfluous [4]. In this way, the identification  of a threshold of catastrophe becomes increasingly de-  pendent on who is likely to earn advantages from risky  behaviour. Those who feel that risk, or gambling, will  bring advantages to others than themselves, will move  the threshold of catastrophe accordingly. In sum, the very  perception of catastrophe and risk varies according to the  position one occupies in “gambling”: some individuals  may make decisions while others may just suffer the  outcomes of those decisions [5].  We spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t  need, to make impressions that don’t last, on people who  don’t care. Because we do not run risks in the pursuit of  what is necessary, but of what is superfluous, neo-liber-  alism needs to turn th e superfluous into a natural produ ct  of human activity or even into an element of human or-  ganic reproduction. Hence its need to imitate the natural  sciences, biologists, physicists, mathematicians and other  scientists have been called upon  to make economic theo- ries more “realistic and effective”, namely to inoculate  doses of dogma into them. As Gallino [2, pp. 94-95] has  noted, the major opus of economics produced in the 20th  century, the General Theory of Keynes (1936), out of a  total 400 pages included, mainly in the appendix, three or  four simple equations. In 1950 only 2 - 3 per cent of the  articles published by the influential American Economic  Review contained mathematic formulas, which normally  were not at all sophisticated. In 1980 the papers with  mathematical calculations were 44 per cent and formulas  had become much more complex. Currently the percent-  age is close to 90 per cent. The only “real” scien ce within  the human sciences, neo-liberal economics dominates in  university courses, in the specialist literatu re, and in  most  schools of management and business. It is the core relig-  ion of business administrators, large enterprises, financial  institutions, ministries of the economy, central banks,  international organisations, the World Bank, the World  Monetary Fund and the European Commission.  The economy is seen as a physical system, implying  flows of goods, information and energy, so that it might  be useful to model the economy as a system, like physics  does. However, while economic theory uses the concept  of equilibrium, the same concept used by physics cannot  be applied to the economy, because this is an open sys-  tem and equilibrium refers to closed systems [2, p. 92].  Neo-liberalism does not observe and describe the  economic reality, it creates this reality. It also produces a  new conceptualisation of risk: from risk as uncertainty  for enterprise to risk as uncertainty for society at large.  This shift contradicts one of the very axioms of free  markets, namely that the full costs of a transaction must  be borne by the involved parties. Many economic active-  ties and transactions, however, exact a significant price  on humans and ecosystems, although economists label  such price with the reassuring  euphemism “externalities”  [6]. In brief, neo-liberalism regards environmental harm  as an accidental, unintentional, externality.  2. Law and Economy  The analysis of harm-producing economic development  bears close resemblance with that of white collar crime,  as both are situated on what scholars addressing the latter  describe as the legal-illegal continuum. The notion that  there is continuity between legality and illegality is cru-  cial for an understanding of white collar, corporate, state  crime, and of the crimes of the powerful in general. This  notion may be fruitfully u tilised when harmful economic  conduct is analysed, as this can result from illicit as well  as totally lawful initiative [7]. The study of harmful eco-  nomic conduct, in other words, encounters the same  theoretical predicament experienced by students of the  crimes of the powerful and campaigners mobilising  against them. As Sutherland realized, research on the  crimes of the powerful is difficult without a willingness  to expand one’s sample well beyond the legal d efinitions  of crime. Global warming, for instance, may be likened  to sate-corporate crime [8], although in general one should  specify that the harm caused by econo mic initiative is the   outcome of a series of interlaced conducts that are “bad”  in themselves, on the one hand, and conducts that are  “bad” because they are prohibited by law, on the other. In  sum, harm-producing development contains at the same  time mala in se and mala prohibita.  In his analysis of the relationship between the law and  the economy, Max Weber [9] notes that there are limits  to the success of legal coercion in the economic sphere.  Such limits are dependent on the strength of the actors  involved, respectively pursuing their material interests  and promoting conformity to th e law. “The inclination to   Copyright © 2012 SciRes.                                                                                  BLR  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities 123 forego economic opportunity simply in order to act le-  gally is obviously slight, unless circumvention of the  formal law is strongly disapproved by a powerful con-  vention” [9, p. 335]. In the economic sphere, on the other  hand, “it is often not difficult to disguise the circumven- tion of the law”, as economic action creates its own le- gitimacy in the material as well as the legal realm. Inad- vertently or not, Weber’s remarks fall into the arena of  the crimes committed by powerful individuals and  groups, where offenders possess an exorbitantly exceed- ing amount of material and symbolic resources when  compared to those possessed by their victims. The des- ignation of harmful economic conduct as crime is con- troversial and highly problematic, due to the higher ca- pacity on the part of powerful economic actors to control  the effects of their actions and to conceal (or negotiate)  their criminal nature. Such actors enjoy a “control sur- plus”, namely an excess of control exercised on others  relative to the control they are subjected to by oth ers [10].  Their conduct is “foundational”, in  the sense that it takes  shape in a grey area in which behaviour awaits the out- come of the criminalisation -decriminalisation conflict, as  it may be subject to regulation or become accepted rou- tine. Some economic initiatives are enacted within  vaguely regulated arenas and while presenting them- selves as acceptable conduct end up creating a precedent.  Other initiatives implicitly invoke legal pragmatism,  challenging legal reasoning and advocating departure  from precedents [11]. Economic action invoking legal  pragmatism is foundational in nature, as it is inspired by  an “experimental” logic and driven by a consequentialist  philosophy. Powe rful actors so driven  adopt certain prac- tices with the awareness that they may be unorthodox,  but with an eye to the social and institutional reactions  that might ensue. It is the intensity of such responses  which will determine whether such practices become part  of a “viable” routine or are to be carefully avoided. Some  economic initiatives, in sum, possess a “founding force”,  namely they are capable of transforming the previous  jurisprudence and establishing new laws and new types  of legitimacy [12]. Foundational economic action re- structures the legal and the political spheres while play- ing a legislative role.  A variety of foundational power crimes fall in the  economic domain and pertain, specifically, to the envi-  ronment, where forcing the rules often results in new  rules being devised, in a race which sees the law ch asing  the economy, rather than vice-versa.  3. Destroying through “Science”  At one extreme of the legal-illegal continuum we find  conducts which are detrimental to the environment but  enjoy the “scientific” sanction of economic thought. These  are “crimes of the economy” and deserve more attention  than they are usually given by criminologists, some of  whom still believe, by contrast, that economic develop-  ment is in itself a key tool of crime prevention. Econo-  mists have often paid visits to the field of criminology,  examining the rational logic of offending. It is time to  return the visit, in order to ascertain whether the traces of  some familiar criminological concepts can be fo und there  [13]. But, first, let us outline some interesting recent de-  velopments in criminology.  Green criminologists analysing global environmental  harm straddle legal-procedural approaches, which define  harm as the outcome of illegal practices, and ecological  approaches, which contemplate environmental harm more  broadly, “by invoking no tions of environ mental morality,  environmental ethics, and animal, ecological, or human  rights” [14, p. 161]. In doing so, they are faced with the  dilemma known in ecological theory and practice as the  distinction between “shallow” and “deep” ecologism.  The former appears to believe that the technology which  is destroying the environment may also rescu e  it: a mana-  gerial approach to environmental problems will be suffi-  cient to solve problems, without fundamental changes in  present values or patterns of production and consumption.  Deep ecology, by contrast, embraces a holistic outlook,  whereby humans are interconnected with each other and  are constantly in relationship with everything around  them—they are part of the flow of energy, the web of life.  Radical changes in production and consumption patterns,  but also in the fundamental principles and values ex-  pressed by the undeservedly respected “science” of eco-  nomics, are necessary.  Is the environment a public good? “Yes”, if we, in ab-  stract terms, assimilate it to other non-rival, non-ex-  cludable goods, in the sense that one person’s enjoyment  of the environment does not exclude its enjoyment by  others, and in the sense that the good environment is  provided to one and all at the same time. However, the  answer is “No” if we believe that goods and resources  belong to those who turn them into wealth. Economic  thought starts its “scientific” arguments from the latter  assumption, and in the texts of the founding fathers of  economic liberalism this assumption takes the form of  rationalisation for the plunder and destruction of colonial  regions. John Locke [15], for example, laid the philoso-  phical groundwork for human freedom in all its dimen-  sions: free enterprise, free trade, free competition, and  the freedom to invest. Freedom to destroy, in his thought,  takes the form of exploitation of the earth, which cannot  be left there as an object of contemplation, but has to be  turned into property as the result of improvement and  work. By leaving fruits to rot and venison to putrefy, and  for that matter by leaving the earth untouched, we offend  the common law of nature.  Copyright © 2012 SciRes.                                                                                  BLR  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities  124  Thrift, work and perseverance may replace inherited  rights to property, but is there a limit in hoarding up  more than one can make use of? By the same token, is  there a limit beyond which the exploitation of the earth  constitutes a threat to the planet? John Locke believes  that the “bounds of just property” have been removed  with the invention of money, which makes economic ini-  tiative boundless and  infinite, money b eing “some lasting  thing that men might keep without spoiling” [15, p. 140].  Natural resources, in this view, must be turned into  monetary value, because if left idle they will dissipate.  Colonies and their inhabitants were a substantial part of  the natural resources this type of reasoning referred to.  The entire earth, today, can be likened to the resources  of the old colonies, including slaves, all given to us not  for the mere purpose of contemplation or for leading a  good life, but with the implicit mandate to use and ex-  ploit them. The environment, therefore, is not a common  good, but an arena where the capacity and ingenuity of  humans is constantly tested, and such capacity and inge-  nuity appear to be the only limit to initiative and devel-  opment. The ultimate resource, in brief, is the human  mind, and throughout history human genius always wins  out against natural resource restraints.  Physiocrats such as Quesnay [16, p. 15] urged that “the  land employed in the cultivation of corn be brought to- gether, as far as possible, into large farms worked by rich  husbandmen; for in large agricultural enterprises there is  less expenditure required for the upkeep and repair of  buildings, and proportionally much less cost and much  more net product than in small ones”. Small farms, in- stead, “employ uselessly, and at the expense of the reve- nue of the land, a greater numb er of the families of farm- ers, the extent of whose activities and means hardly puts  them in a position to carry on wealthy cultivation”.  Wealthy cultivation, to be sure, consists of intensive and  limitless exploitation of the soil, accompanied by enclo- sures and priv atisation of the land, and the bo undless use  of resources. Growth is a permanent concern, as revenues  cannot remain inert, “to the detriment of the rep roduction  of the revenues and the well-being of the people” [16, p.  5]. Similarly, capital should not be taxed, otherwise  growth is inhibited and development hampered.  Physiocracy contributed to the description of the mate-  rial sphere of society, where wealth is created and con-  sumed, as a living organism, with its own blood circula-  tion, its veins and arteries. Quesnay’s economic tables  offered an organic representation of economic life as an  autonomous system, thus paving the way for the defini-  tive divorce between economics and ethics. From then on,  one sphere of human action increasingly distanced itself  from other common values orienting social interaction:  economics could no longer abide by the useless and da-  mageing principles governing the socialisation of groups  and individuals. Economics became a science.  Adam Smith granted the final seal to this science, pos-  iting the existence of a universal, timeless individual en-  gaged in the constant pursuit of material interests, thus  turning the immorality of accumulation into an instinct-  tive, biological necessity. Infinite growth becomes a  spontaneous mechanism involving productive agents  who transform resources into commodities and wealth:  such agents are the only representative of civility in that  they provide the necessary livelihood for all. Glorifying  producers, in Adam Smith, goes hand in hand with ridi-  culing those whose activity does not yield quantifiable  value or n et profit, su ch as  domestic servants, politician s,  soldiers, judges, artists, teachers and clergy. Lawyers,  men of letters and musicians are equated to opera singers,  opera dancers and buffoons [17]. Such unproductive in-  dividuals do not “work” because they do not transform  anything: their performance perishes as soon as it is de-  livered, leaving the surrounding environment unchanged.  Homo oeconomicus opposes sterility and is urged into  developing innovative ideas leading to the relentless  conquest and re-shaping of the environment, in a process  that coincides with innate desire and the search for hu-  man happiness. Access to the economy and its products  links homo oeconomicus with homo laborans, both  chained to their own infinite material aspirations, the last  human beings, the happy slaves “replete with the goods  that [they] produce and consume without any other ideal  than ensuring [their] own comfort and tranq uillity” [18, p.  17]. With Adam Smith, therefore, necessity not freedom  came to connote human history, as development was  inscribed in the biological make up of humans. Whether  such bio- logical necessity generates waste and devasta- tion did not concern  th e founding  father s of econo mics as  a science, because the spontaneous dynamic of growth  was deemed capable of self-regulation. Human waste, in  the form of labour cyclically expelled from the produc- tive process, could sooner or later be absorbed into other,  innovative, economic initiatives, while the harm caused  to the environment will be mended by the very technol- ogy producing it [5]. We have no alternative, Smith re- marked, to accepting the distributional inequities and  moral violence that accompany private property relations,  as these are the only means for securing ou r survival. On  the other hand, this also  means that selfishness should be  the pivotal variable orienting our action, irrespective of  how destructive this might be. Surely, there is a Chris- tian-Hebraic stance in this suggestion, whereby a supe- rior entity will arrange things so that every egoistic con- duct will find its synthesis in a higher, inscrutable, har- mony. This is a hubristic theory positing that we resem- ble the God who made us, and that we no longer need his  judgement on our exploits. In sum, we are depicted as  animals, full of instincts, innate desires and egoism, but  Copyright © 2012 SciRes.                                                                                  BLR  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities 125 at the same time as gods who turn their animal nature  into universal harmony. This reveals a further contradict-  tion: despite the adherence to the doctrine of laissez-faire  in theory, Adam Smith maintains a strong interest in  promoting policies that further accumulation and favour  enterprise, whether both generate harm or not.  Locke, Quesnay and Smith converge, in different fa-  shions, into the practical philosophy or ideology of neo-  liberalism discussed above.   4. Valueless Lives  The harm caused by economic initiative, as externality,  includes climate change, disposal of toxic waste, de-for-  estation, pollution of sea, air and land, gigantic dispari-  ties in income, transference of toxicity to poor regions  and countries, impoverishment of vulnerable populations  and destruction of communities [19]. These “ecocidal”  tendencies [20] implicit in unfettered development are  masked in a process whereby the specific victims of de-  velopment itself disappear. Ideological strategies preside  over this disappearance, among which a hierarchical po-  sitioning of populations and individuals is of crucial im-  portance. Ontological priorities are established so that  some lives are deemed less valuable than others: in fact,  some lives are never lived nor lost in the full sense.  There are lives worth living and lives worth destroying,  the former being valuable and grievable, the latter de-  valued and ungrievable [21]. Utilitarian reasoning does  not object to such distinction, as the suffering of some  does not diminish the total happiness generated by the  economy. This distinction, in other words, implies the  neglect of individual wellbeing and happiness, while the  ranking of social goo dness and the selection of what is to  be chosen is done simply on the basis of the sum total of  individual   wel fares [22].  The utilitarian calculus based on happiness or de-  sire-fulfilment can b e deeply u nfair to  thos e who  are p er-  sistently deprived since our mental make-up and desires  tend to adjust to circumstances, particularly to make life  bearable in adverse situations. It is through “coming to  terms” with one’s hopeless predicament that life is made  somewhat bearable b y the traditional underd ogs, such  as  oppressed minorities in intolerant communities, sweated  workers in exploitative indust rial   arrangements, precarious  share-croppers living in a world of uncertainty, or sub- dued housewives in deeply sexist cultures [22, p. 282] .   This “coming to terms” includes the acceptance of dif-  ferentiated distribution of vulnerability and precarious-  ness that the economy itself promotes.  According to another ideological strategy, develop-  ment has to be seen as war, which requires sacrifice and,  at time, heroes or martyrs. It would not be surprising, for  instance, to hear such justification be ing mobilised by car  manufacturers, who might claim that the victims of road  accidents are no less than martyrs of the process of tech-  nological and economic advancement. Critical social  scientists may argue, in this respect, that the translation  of victims into martyrs requires the use of a high degree  of hypocrisy [23], which is only acceptable in the name  of sovereignty, and in our case, more specifically, in the  name of economic development. However, a distinction  may help clarify this critical argument.  In “The Fable of the Bees”, Mandeville [24] distin-  guishes between malicious and fashionable hypocrites.  The former are said to pretend blind faith in a creed, but  know that their faith is false. The latter are forced to dis-  play their beliefs and show devotion lest they are ex-  cluded from the related social benefits that belief will  bring. Using Mandeville’s definitions, we can suggest  that high-rank economic actors are malicious hypocrites,  in that their belief in infinite development is unshaken by  its visibly destructive consequences. By contrast, some  underprivileged actors may be described as fashionable  hypocrites, in that their faith in economic grow th derives  from the conviction that what they get out of it is better  than nothing. As Sen [22] suggests, the hopelessly de-  prived may lack the will or even the desire to radically  change their social conditio ns. An easy op tion  for them is  to limit their expectation s to the minimum they are likely  to achieve. Their desires, in other words, become adap-  tive and realistic, an adaptation to reality that at times  includes the acceptance of potential death.  Can the situation be reversed? Can economic devel-  opment turn its threats into opportunities? In conclusion  of this paper the opinion of some who believe so is rap-  idly sketched.  5. Human Development or De-Growth?  When addressing the problems experienced by develop-  ing countries, many politicians, economists, policy-mak-  ers, and bureaucrats keep asserting that social conditions  improve when, and only when, Gross Domestic Product  (GDP) per capita increases. League tables are cones-  quently drawn where countries scoring very high in  terms of GDP display enormous degrees of inequality,  namely countries in which a large proportion of people  do not enjoy the benefits of overall economic growth.  For example, South Africa under apartheid, with its im-  mense inequalities, used to occupy the top positions  among developing countries.  Because countries respond to public rankings that af-  fect their international reputation, this crude approach  encourages them to work for economic growth alone,  without attending to the living standard of their poorer  inhabitants, and   with ou t add ressin g   issues su ch  a s h ealth   and education, which typically do not improve with eco-  nomic growt h [25, p. ix].  If the goal of economic growth is the delivery of an  Copyright © 2012 SciRes.                                                                                  BLR  Economic Development: Threats and Opportunities  126  adequate quality of life to everyone, all countries are  developing countries. This observation has led to a new  perspective in the debate around the functions of eco-  nomic initiative, a new paradigm centred on the notions  of “Human Development” and later “Capability Ap-  proach”. The former appears each year in the UN Devel-  opment Reports since 1990 and is based on the belief that  the real wealth of a nation is its people. In this view, the  purpose of economic development should be “to create  an enabling environment for people to enjoy long,  healthy, and creative lives” [25]. This simple but pow-  erful truth is too often forgo tten in the pursuit of material  and financial wealth, with the consequence that eco-  nomic development becomes increasingly extraneous to  people’s most urgent problems. Even the benefits of  wealth resulting from foreign investment, it is noted, go  in the first instance to elites, so that increased GDP does  not affect wealth distribution.  The benefits of this increased wealth do not reach the  poor, unless those local elites are committed to policies  of redistribution of wealth; and they particularly do not  reach poor women, whose employment opportunities are  so much worse than those of men. Nor, as research  shows, does economic growth by itself deliver improve-  ments in health and education, in the absence of direct  state action [25].  The Capability Approach asks: what is each person  able to do and to be? Taking, in a Kantian fashion, each  person as an end, it evaluates less the total or average  well-being of a nation than the opportunities available to  each individual. A set of opportunities to choose and to  act constitute what Sen [26] calls “substantial freedoms”,  which refer to abilities and capabilities of functioning.  These abilities do not only reside within individuals, but  are also provided by the political, social and economic  environment. They offer the possibility to choose and  lead a life that is worthy of the human dignity. Economic  development, in this perspective, shou ld place all citizens  above a specified threshold of capability, an  achievement  that is only possible if state action interferes with devel-  opment itself.  In a more radical elaboration, economic growth is  equated to a religion against which an atheist fight should  be constantly fough t [27]. Infin ite grow th is incompatible  with a finite planet. Only a tenacious and irrational faith  in “progress” can exp lain why economists and politician s  continue to deny this reality. The provocative term  “de-growth” is utilised to call for the abandonment of  such faith and, as I have attempted to do in this paper, to  contest economic thought itself and its supposed scien-  tific status. As the great economist Schumpeter [28]  warned: “the very ideas of economic thought are quench-  ed in smoke, and few people, and least of all we econo-  mists ourselves, are prone to offer us congratulations on  our intellectual achievements”.  REFERENCES  [1] M. Terni, “La Mano Invisibile Della Politic a: Pace e Guerra   Tra Stato e Mercato,” Garzanti, Milan, 2011.  [2] L. 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