David F. Ruccio — The practical necessity of utopian thinking

Julia O’Connell Davidson and Neil Howard have just announced a new series of articles on utopia.

Utopias are like formal models in that both are idealizations that can be used to gain insights. The issues arise when they are confused with reality or their use ignores practicality.

Compare also stylized fact, heuristic, creativity, and possibility thinking.

In critical thinking, all relevant information and suitable tools are brought to bear on the issues. If critical thinking is brought in too early, opportunities are likely to be overlooked.

Utopian thinking properly employed is about vision and possibility. I should be the starting point of doing economics.

For example, in economics an policy, actual full employment is regarded as utopian, so its consideration is off the table. Economic sociologist Adolf Lowe argued that a properly conceived economics is not to fall into the trap of markets dictate but that human beings can choose (within limits) the kind of society they wish to live in and construct it. Mathew Forstater has an interesting paper about the thinking of Abba Lerner and Adolf Lowe about constructing a "utopian" full employment society with institutions, resources, and tools that are presently available.*

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The practical necessity of utopian thinking
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

* Mathew Forstater, Toward a New Instrumental Macroeconomics: Abba Lerner and Adolph Lowe on Economic Method, Theory, History and Policy