Economics, Enlightenment, and Canadian Nationalism (PDF)

Rejecting the orthodox economic model as an inappropriate representation of social reality, Robert Wright proposes an alternative adapted from Foucault's cultural theories. This new perspective leads him to conclude that, within the discipline of Canadian economics, theory should become gestalt rather than pure, methodology should become normative rather than positive, and policy should be directed towards the achievement of economic nationalism rather than continentalism.Orthodox economics has played a role in the gradual narrowing of the concept of man from a being involved with the fullness of life to "economic man" an efficiently functioning mechanism within present-day technological society. The current subservience to economic and technological efficiency has produced a spiritual malaise that Wright believes must be challenged. He argues that the reconstruction of "economic man" involves the recuperation of both "universal" knowledge from the past and "local" knowledge from within one's own culture. Citing the Bible as the text for universal knowledge for the West, Wright examines the work of Blake, Kierkegaard, and Tillich as representative figures who have challenged the narrow scientism of the "idea of progress" and "economic man." For local knowledge, he turns to the work of Margaret Atwood, Harold Innis, and Alex Colville representative figures who speak to the dissonant tensions that lie at the heart of Canadian culture. Each has identified the main features of Canadian existence and potential and, in spite of the diversity of their intellectual orientation, shares the view that we are burdened with bias and domination men over women, civilization over nature, space over time, foreign control over nationalism, and centre over margin.