{"id":85686,"date":"2025-09-17T07:53:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T06:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=85686"},"modified":"2025-09-17T07:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T06:53:26","slug":"quantum-economics-part-10-a-call-for-a-new-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/17\/quantum-economics-part-10-a-call-for-a-new-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum economics, part 10: A Call for a New Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post continues the story of quantum economics, which began here<\/a>. There is a summary of posts to date at the end of this post.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Can you please note when reading this post and others in the series that I am not suggesting that quantum physics and economics are akin to each other. Instead, I am exploring how quantum thinking might help build new economic narratives, which is quite a different goal.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A Call for a New Economics<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u201cIt is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.\u201d \u2013 Charles Darwin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Economics, as it stands, has failed.<\/p>\n

It failed to predict the 2008 crash.<\/p>\n

It failed to prevent austerity\u2019s harm.<\/p>\n

It fails today to confront inequality, climate change, and the democratic crisis.<\/p>\n

At its heart, it fails because it clings to a Newtonian worldview: economies as machines tending toward equilibrium, governed by abstract laws that deny uncertainty and power.<\/p>\n

This series has argued for a different approach: a quantum political economy<\/span>. It is not physics applied literally, but a set of metaphors and insights that illuminate reality better than a model of economics based on equilibrium does.<\/p>\n

Money is potential energy, labour the quantum of value, land the finite field, double-entry entanglement the fabric of relationships, uncertainty the truth of the future.<\/p>\n

This final part sets out the call: what a new economics must stand for, how it differs from the old, and why it matters now.<\/p>\n

\n

First: naming the failures of old economics<\/b><\/h2>\n

Before building the new, we must name what is broken.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    The obsession with equilibrium.<\/b><\/span> The idea that markets self-correct blinds us to potential crises. Stability is assumed, so the risk of collapse is systemically ignored.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    The myth of rational agents.<\/span> People are not calculators who maximise utility. They are social beings shaped by norms, power, and limits.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Money is treated as a neutral economic force.<\/span> Money is treated as a veil, not a force, and yet it is its potential energy that shapes real outcomes.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    The denial of the significance of labour.<\/span> Work is treated as a cost, not the foundation of value. Unemployment is tolerated as if idle labour were harmless.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Land is ignored.<\/span> Land is collapsed into capital. Rents and natural limits are hidden. The housing and ecological crises follow.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  6. \n

    Speculation is indulged.<\/span> Finance is celebrated for efficiency, while, in fact, it traps energy in sterile loops, destabilising the system.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  7. \n

    The forecasting fetish.<\/span> False precision in GDP and inflation targets creates bad policy based on impossible certainty.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are not small errors. They are systematic flaws that discredit economics as a discipline and impoverish politics as practice.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Second: principles of a new economics<\/b><\/h2>\n

    A quantum political economy begins with different principles:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      Uncertainty is real.<\/span> The future cannot be predicted precisely. Policy must build resilience, not pretend to know.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    2. \n

      Money is potential.<\/span> It is infinite in issue but limited in use by real capacity. It must be directed toward production, not speculation.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    3. \n

      Labour is quantum.<\/span> Human effort is indivisible and fundamental. Full employment is a right and a necessity.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    4. \n

      Land is finite.<\/span> Natural resources are fixed and must be shared and stewarded. Rent must be taxed, and ecological limits respected.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    5. \n

      Entanglement matters.<\/span> One person's income is another person's cost. Every loan is matched by an asset. The economy is a web, not isolated atoms.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    6. \n

      Collapse happens.<\/span> Crises are inevitable. Policy must dampen, not deny, systemic instability.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    7. \n

      Distribution is central.<\/span> Inequality is not a side issue. It is a drag on flows, a trap of energy, and a cause of fragility.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \n

      Third: policy architecture<\/b><\/h2>\n

      From these principles flows a different policy agenda:<\/p>\n