Missing in the debate on the ‘responsibility’ of research, innovation, and business is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘responsibility’ and the normative economic principles or ‘micro-economic foundations’ that guide the world’s financial capital and therefore determine which businesses, innovations and research are and which are not funded. As a result, much research and innovation that is deemed responsible will not materialise. We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining our understanding of choice and capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundation – homo economicus − as an unduly restrictive version of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice.@en

Unless we direct technology, technology will increasingly direct us, with mass un(der)employment and a possible atrophying of the human soul (i.e. human thinking, feeling and will) as likely consequences. The root of such problems is a failure to understand capital fully, itself a consequence of a failure to understand fully the human condition. The solution is to complete today’s incomplete theory of capital so that capital can take on its true role as the enabler of human capacities.@en

(Expected) adverse effects of the ‘ICT Revolution’ on work and opportunities for individuals to use and develop their capacities give a new impetus to the debate on the societal implications of technology and raise questions regarding the ‘responsibility’ of research and innovation (RRI) and the possibility of achieving ‘inclusive and sustainable society’. However, missing in this debate is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘inclusive and sustainable society’ and conventional economic principles guiding capital allocation (including the funding of research and innovation). We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining the nature and purpose of capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundations as an unduly restrictive subset of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice.@en

Higher real wages provide macroeconomic benefits in terms of increased demand if the economy is wage-led (as in most European economies) and of higher labour productivity growth and more rapid technological progress. Taking these benefits into account, we show that a wage-led economy becomes less strongly wage-led. The impact of higher real wage growth on employment growth becomes ambiguous. But for model parameter values which are realistic for the wage-led eurozone, higher real wages reduce employment growth. Contrariwise, real wage restraint in a weakly wage-led economy generates jobs – as recent European experience underscores. This internal contradiction in wage-led economies can be overcome if a high wage regime is complemented by supportive fiscal and monetary policies.@en

Er is hernieuwde aandacht voor de AIQ omdat deze in bijna alle OESO-landen een dalende trend vertoont. Er zijn verschillende macro-economische oorzaken voor de daling aan te wijzen, zoals robotisering, globalisering en arbeidsmarktderegulering. Gevolg is dat de vraag daalt, wat de potentiële economische groei reduceert.@en

The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labor cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labor markets), or a combination of both. Based on these diagnoses, crisis countries have been treated with the bitter medicines of fiscal austerity, wage reductions, and labor market deregulation—all in the expectation that these would restore cost competitiveness and revive growth (through exports), while at the same time allowing for fiscal consolidation and private debt deleveraging. The medicines did not work and almost killed the patients. The problem lies with the diagnoses: the real cause of the crisis resides in unsustainable private sector debt leverage, which was aided and abetted by the liberalization of European financial markets and a “global banking glut.”@en

The dominant view, both on the mainstream right and on the left, holds that the Eurozone crisis is a crisis of labour-cost competitiveness—with trade imbalances (and hence foreign indebtedness) being driven by divergences in relative unit labour costs (RULCs) between surplus and deficit countries. To re-balance Eurozone growth, the mainstream solution is a deflationary policy of ‘internal devaluation’ (i.e. cutting the wage share by as much as 30%) in the deficit countries. The ‘progressive’ view holds that the surplus countries should adjust by raising their wage shares. We argue that both sides of this debate are wrong and unhelpful. Europe’s trade imbalances are determined by domestic and world demand—whilst RULC divergences play only a negligible role. Eurozone growth can only be revived when Eurozone demand growth is restored, not by lowering wages here and/or raising them there. The current deflationary adjustment forced on the wage-led economies of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain is self-destructive: it is a ‘confidence killer’, not only deepening the free fall of southern European incomes but also damaging their productive base and productivity growth. The outlook is depressing—further increases in already high unemployment rates, inequality measures and poverty rates inconceivable in prosperous Europe just a few years ago—and arguably dystopian. @en