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Executive Summary
The Problem
Economics governs the provisioning of life necessities across societies and generations, yet its dominant frameworks are grounded in monetary proxies — prices, profits, GDP, and asset growth — that are not intrinsically tied to life-support conditions. As a result, orthodox economics routinely classifies systems as “successful” while the ecological, health, social, and institutional foundations required for their persistence are being degraded.
This is not a failure of data, incentives, or regulation. It is a failure of scientific grounding.
A theory that allows economic “growth” while systematically undermining the conditions of life is not a completed science of economy.
The Diagnosis
This paper shows that orthodox economics fails key criteria of scientific adequacy:
- Incorrect state variables: prices and money flows substitute for life-necessity sufficiency.
- Misidentified capital: monetary assets are conflated with regenerative capacity.
- Invalid efficiency metrics: profit and cost minimization replace ecological, physical, and human efficiency.
- Proxy-based development measures: GDP rises while life access declines.
- Systemic risk blindness: life-capital depletion is excluded from risk models.
These errors cause the system to select for activities that convert shared life capital — often through erosion of civil commons — into private monetary gain, until resilience collapses.
The Solution
Using John McMurtry’s Life-Value Onto-Axiology, this paper reconstructs economics as a life-coherent science by establishing:
- A Primary Axiom of Value
Value is defined by the expansion of coherent life-range (thought, felt being, action); disvalue by its contraction. - A Correct Economic State Space
Universal human life necessities — air, water, food, shelter, healthcare, education, meaningful work, ecological integrity, and social inclusion — replace prices as the core variables. - A Scientific Definition of Development
Development is the expansion of secure access to life goods across the population and through time, not transaction volume. - A Regenerative Concept of Capital
Life capital is that which produces life goods without loss across generations; false capital yields returns by consuming these foundations. - A Life-Coherent Definition of Efficiency
Efficiency is achieved only when ecological, physical, and human development efficiencies improve together. - Restoration of the Civil Commons
Public health, water systems, education, legal institutions, and ecological protections are recognized as primary economic infrastructure.
Implications for Finance, Banking, and Policy
- Banking and credit allocation must be evaluated by life-capital regeneration, not monetary return alone.
- Risk management and stress testing must include life-capital and civil-commons degradation as systemic risk.
- Public finance and accounting must distinguish investment in life capital from false capital accumulation.
- Development policy must abandon GDP-centric conditionality in favor of life-goods sufficiency metrics.
These changes do not abolish markets or finance; they correct their governing objectives.
Conclusion
This paper demonstrates that the repeated failures of orthodox economics are structurally inevitable under its current axioms. John McMurtry’s Life-Value Onto-Axiology supplies the missing scientific foundation required to align economic theory with the realities of life support, regeneration, and persistence.
The choice now facing the profession is not ideological. It is scientific.
Economics can continue optimizing money growth until life systems fail — or it can mature into a life-coherent science capable of sustaining civilization over time.
Comparison of Orthodox and Life-Coherent Economics Models
Please scroll horizontally to see right columns| Dimension | Value Basis & Grounding | Operational Framework | Value Basis | State Variables | Primary Objective | Capital Classification | Efficiency Metrics | Systemic Risk Definition | Role of Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orthodox Economics | Symbolic proxy optimization (money-sequence) based on preferences and prices | Optimization of symbolic monetary proxies | Subjective preference satisfaction and monetary exchange value | Prices, quantities, and GDP | Profit and growth maximization | Monetary assets | Cost/profit minimization and maximization | Financial volatility, liquidity issues, and price shocks | "Public expenditure" or externalities |
| Life-Coherent Economics (LVOA) | Life-support system grounding; Life-range enablement across Thought, Felt being, and Action (T/F/A) | Maintenance and enhancement of the life-ground | Life-range enablement (Thought, Felt being, Action) | Life-necessity sufficiency (air, water, food, shelter, etc.) | Secure life access across generational time | Regenerative life capital | Joint Ecological, Physical, and Human efficiency | Life-capital depletion and life-support system deficits | Civil commons (core economic capital and infrastructure) |
