Hi!
This is a thoughtful piece, and I appreciate that. I have a BA in economics and an MBA and I've founded and run a business.
The problem with economics, which I discovered when I took my first macroeconomics course, is that economists devise fanciful (and essentially false) theories and twist them to "explain" reality.
We need to start the other way around. As it stands, for example, neither capitalism or socialism are realistic systems because both, in actual practice, depend on eternal growth—which we see is actually destroying the habitability of the Earth by pouring gigatons of CO2 and other toxins into our air, water and soil. Our agribusiness is killing the ecosystems within our soil (yes, it's not just "dirt" but rich and complex ecosystems.) The Earth is a living system, not simply a source of raw materials and a toilet. And people are actual living beings with consciousness and needs and complex emotions — they are not merely “human resources.”
It doesn't matter whether an intrusive state or greedy corporations destroy the planet. The effect is still the same.
We need to start from reality and values, and our economic and political systems must operate within them. That is, if we want to continue living on a habitable Earth and not kill ourselves along with the other species that share this planet with us.
