Emancipatory Social Science, with Christian Arnsperger

Musing Mind Podcast

Christian is an economist whose work can help answer the question: how might economics become an 'emancipatory' social science?

Christian holds a PhD in economics, is a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, a former advisor to the alternative bank of Switzerland, and was a long-time researcher at the Belgian National Science Foundation. He's the author of Critical Political Economy and Full-Spectrum Economics, among other books on political economy with an existential and ecological focus.

As an economist unafraid to venture into questions around spirituality, or the evolution of consciousness, his works are highly interdisciplinary, including a fusion of Ken Wilber's integral philosophy with post-neoclassical economics, and a dialogue between Max Horkheimer and Friedrich Hayek.

Our conversation is about emancipatory social science. What is it, and how might economics move in its direction. More broadly, we cover:

• What emancipation means in the context of social science
• What Ken Wilber’s philosophy can bring to economics
• Christian’s loving critique of complexity economics
• The idea of a society’s "critical spirit", which functions as a parallel to price signals
• The role that greater variety can play in changing the course of the economy as a complex system
• And the role that actual policies, like a basic income, or a job guarantee, or empowering people to work fewer hours, might play in making that kind of deep existential variety, variety in our forms of life, actually viable

Enjoy!