Given the close connection between the production processes that make up the economy and the deterioration of our climate and ecological systems, it seems extraordinary that this question is not at the heart of the concerns of the economics profession as well as the teaching of economics. Yet a full 16 years since Professor Stern identified climate change as the ‘greatest market failure of all time’ the overwhelming majority of economists are still operating as technicians for the growth economy while those of us who raise questions about its impact on the biosphere remain marginalised. The QAA benchmark statement for economics is a case in point: it outlines the key concerns of the discipline without any reference to the climate change, the biosphere or the ecosystem which is the basis of all economic activity. This disconnection of the discipline that defines itself as ‘the study of the factors that influence income, wealth and well-being’ from the natural wealth it depends on and the destruction of well-being caused by ecological and climate crises is a serious concern.
A decade ago I posited the imaginary of ‘the economist as shaman’, a concept I hoped would encompass both the role the economist plays mediating between citizens and the resources they depend on for existence, but also the quasi-spiritual place economists hold in modern societies. A key role for the economist is to maintain the close connection between human beings and other animals and the natural world we share. The shaman Gordon MacLellan offers a view of how this connection can work: ‘If we’re drinking tea here, we have a connection with a tea plantation somewhere else in the world. I sit in the house and listen to what it’s feeling, what its energies are like. These connections comprise the web. For me, there’s a way of moving along my line that causes the least disturbance in the web’ (Leonard, 2023).
With the climate and ecological crises accelerating, driven by the economic model adopted by the overwhelming majority of economists, I propose to raise the question of how an economist should act and to re-examine what the role of the shaman might offer. A shaman garners her or his power from myths, hence a critical interrogation of ‘the myth of economism’ (Peter, 2017) is fundamental to my project. I then proceed to explore how the four central roles of the shaman might help to reshape the role of an economist in a climate and ecological emergency:
- A social authority and the accompanying responsibility to provide challenge to existing power systems;
- A close and reverential relationship with nature or what we might more scientifically define as the ecosystem and the ability to establish and transcend boundaries between humans and nature;
- Mediation between humans and other species through an intuitive as well as a material understanding;
- The power to offer healing.
While shamanism is the fastest growing religion across England and Wales (Allich, A.) I am not proposing economists adopt this religion. Indeed, the publication of Laudato Si’ and the Faith and Practice of the Society of Friends both indicate that Christian traditions can share the reverential approach to the natural world. But I am suggesting that the particular relationship that shamans cultivate with the natural world might inform how economists could become a positive rather than negative force in an era of climate and ecological emergency.
Key bibliographic sources
Allich, A. (2023, Jan 5). Shamanism: what you need to know about the fastest-growing ‘religion’ in England and Wales . The Conversation . https://theconversation.com/shamanism-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-fastest-growing-religion-in-england-and-wales-196438
Leonard, A. (2023), ‘Dreaming big’, The Friend, 13th January.
Peter, T. (2017), ‘De-Mythologizing the Myth of Economism’, Journal of Lutheran Ethics: https://elca.org/JLE/Articles/1209
‘Shamanism is Britain’s fastest-growing religion: Climate anxiety helps to explain its rising popularity’, The Economist: https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/02/09/shamanism-is-britains-fastest-growing-religion