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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present and explore the deleterious socioeconomic consequence of six interrelated trends upon the sustainability of the personal portion of America’s social contract.Design/methodology/approach Neoclassical economic growth theory is used to frame the discussion of the trends in significant variables. This paper is a general review and draws on widely available data and academic insights of scholars.Findings This detailed examination leads to rejection of ergodicity and concludes that the existing social contract is unrealizable and unsustainable in present form for all but a shrinking minority of citizens.Research limitations/implications The conclusion is robust but tentative since the trends reviewed are not fixed and may deviate from existing trend lines given undetermined government policies and unforeseeable technological developments.Originality/value The paper examines the origins and implications of six adverse systemic trends, highlighting the fact that existing policy prescriptions lack understanding of – and/or scale to comprehensively address – a growing existential threat to the Liberal Tradition’s entrenched social contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both formal and informal institutions are usually perceived as constraints that structure and limit human behavior. This is understandable when we use them as an addition to neoclassical economics and as an attempt to overcome its deficiencies. Yet institutions also enable behavior which would otherwise probably be inexistent. This paper aims to highlight the enabling feature of institutions and briefly recognizes selected consequences of it. We argue (1) that because institutional arrangements cause specific distribution results thus the process of institutional change is virtually infinite and does not have to lead to socially optimal effects and (2) that informal institutions (social norms) have today important explanatory and creative power for the existing social order and economic development. We conclude by suggesting that more interdisciplinary approach to economics may contribute to our better understanding of socioeconomic reality and indicate promising threads of current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on N. Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomic paradigm, this paper reconsiders the neoclassical economic paradigm which endorses continuous global economic growth through stimulated trade. We suggest that, in view of sustainability, it is fundamental to acknowledge: (1) the importance of preserving the identity and integrity of economic systems in different regions of the world through enlarging as much as possible self-sufficiency and equity assessed at national and regional levels; and (2) the importance of including respect for biospheric equilibria as one criterion to be used to regulate world economic activity and trade. We examine differences and similarities of the past and present patterns of ecological degradation. We also present two types of efficiency to assess technological changes and the drive toward unsustainability. Then we discuss an entropy-based theory of North-South trade issues and three points for promotion of sustainability. Finally, we show that the true origin of current ecological crisis lies in a deep change in the perception of the relation between humans and nature that affects the mode of technological development of modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the neoclassical theory of economic growth through a comparative historical analysis of social development in Costa Rica and Chile in the post-1930 period. The neoclassical model underestimates the social and political sources of social development. Markets may create a dynamic and expanding economy, but growth will not automatically result in social infrastructure that will advance the social conditions of the majority. It is in this context that working-class mobilization is decisive for social development. As the Costa Rican and Chilean experience shows, a mobilized working-class can advance social development by forcing government actors to implement social policies in the attempt to either weaken the strength of labor or to buy labor's support. In either case, labor fulfills a critical role in establishing the statutory and bureaucratic precedents for advances in social development.