Why economics will never make firms sustainable: and an alternative which might

This book (preprint) explains that the scientific foundation of economics is incompatible with the pursuit of sustainability and highlights that we will be unable to make our firms or societies sustainable if we continue to rely on economics for the mobilisation of money, people, and resources. This is relevant, first, because of the urgent sustainability issues that our societies are currently facing and trying to resolve. And second, because it challenges the dominant view in academia, business, and government which suggests, based on economics, that we can sustainably transform our economies by re-orienting firms to focus on long-term value creation and shifting towards stakeholder capitalism.

By showing that the sustainable potential of economics and this shift are overstated, and will never make firms sustainable, this book aims to contribute towards a more effective sustainability transition. In support of this aim, it also provides an alternative conceptual framework that we can use to replace economics and think more effectively about the sustainability of economic phenomena such as firms, exchange, and markets. This framework (the Generative State) includes a new theory of value (generative theory of value) and an original approach to policy-making and regulation (marketecture). It lays the foundation for an original approach to market regulation and leads to a sustainable reconceptualisation of the role of business in society.