Economics and Information: Toward a New (and More Sustainable) Worldview

<jats:p> Mainstream or neoclassical economics assumes a commodity-only status for information, even though information is indivisible, subjective, shared, and intangible, making information quite ill-suited for commodity treatment. Likewise, orthodox economics posits communication as comprising merely acts of commodity exchange, thereby ignoring gift relations, dialogic interactions, the cumulative and transformative properties of all informational interchange, and the social or community context within which communicative action takes place. This article draws out implications for human survival of continuing to implement policies based on neoclassical modes of analysis, and touches upon some main features of an alternative, communication-centred worldview, this latter perspective being much more consistent with ecosystem vitality and with human community. </jats:p>