Dear Lucio Muñoz

The current circular economy does not have worse thinking for socio-environmental sustainability than the traditional economic thinking of 1987. On the contrary, the circular economy has evolved from the concept of sustainable development defined in 1987 in the Brundtland Report, which sought to "satisfy the needs of present generations without compromising the possibilities of future generations.

The circular economy proposes concrete strategies to achieve this sustainable development, such as product redesign, reuse, recycling, and resource reduction, with the aim of generating economic prosperity, protecting the environment, and preventing pollution.

Therefore, the current circular economy represents an advance in the practical application of the sustainability principles originally defined in 1987.

I hope this helps.

Felix, good day. Thank you for taking the time to comment.

If you were right, then WCED 1987 should have recommended CIRCULAR TRADITIONAL MARKET THINKING to solve the socio-environmental issue they documented then, not sustainable development without circularity or the UNCSD 2012 Rio +20 should have reccomended going circular traditional market thinking too to solve the environmental crises they made the priority instead of GREEN MARKETS, but both of them did not recommend CIRCULAR economic thinking then....because doing so is a backward paradigm double down move that makes the sustainability problem being addressed worse as no paradigm correction has been made yet.

Felix, as I said in the note at end of context under which this question is based, You need to understand first what was wrong with traditional market thinking, which 1776-1987 had led to a critical socio-environmental sustainabiility problem as indicated by WCED 1987/Our Common Future.

Do you know what the problem was that led the WCED come up with a partial solution a la sustainable development and away from traditional market thinking in 1987? If you do not know, you will not be able to step outside the box and see why?

With all my respect, I appreciate your time;

Lucio

Before we go further,

Progress in science, especially in a social science like economics, is a generational learning process. Changing the meta-paradigm of economic science from a linear (of outdated math and physics) to a cyclical model (of biology/life science and dynamic statistical learning) requires a methodological re-orientation, e.g. via AI tools; the circular economy model Lucio Muñoz still follows the linear economic thought model, due to the standard static accounting models. In this sense, the circular concept is not worse, but it is still caught in the old economic calculations of society.

_________

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1984/stone/lecture/

https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/stone-lecture.pdf

Stephen, Is it science based progress to go from the thinking that created a a critical socio-environmental problem to the same thinking but circular without addressing the root cause driving that socio-environmental problem the WCED 1987 documented?. It appears that Einstein indicated that you can not solve a problem using the thinking that created the problem in the first place, THAT IS WHY THE WCED 1987 called for leaving traditional economic thinking behind or what the Thomas Kuhn's paradigm evolution loop thinking call thinking outside the status quo box/the outsider.

Stephen, the question is linear traditional markets(Assuming externalities away to achieve optimal growth) and socio-environmental sustainability problems vrs circular traditional markets(Recognizing the externality problem, but not fixing it and still expecting optimal growth abd sicio-environmental sustainability problems, which one is worse for socio-environmental sustainability? The old, one time flawed model/traditional market or the new, two time flawed model/circular traditional market?. What is worse, assuming something away under paradigm shift knowledge gap as Adam Smith did or not doing anything when facing a problem you know it is there/as the promoters of circular economic thinking are doing?

And the question is not about the institutional setting following the move and evolving too to be consistent with the move....but you SEE if the move is the wrong move, then the move of the institutional setting will be wrong too, making matter worse.

Stephen, do you know what was wrong with traditional market thinking, which 1776-1987 had led to a critical socio-environmental sustainabiility problem as indicated by WCED 1987/Our Common Future? Does that problem still exist in the circular economic thinking?

I do appreciate your comment

Respectfully yours;

Lucio

Das Adam Smith Problem is the name given by eighteenth century German scholars to the question of how to reconcile the role of self-interest in The Wealth of Nations with Smith's advocacy of sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

A. Smith attributed to almost all economic factors an illusion that greater wealth yields greater satisfactions, an illusion that is perhaps never pierced, but it is one of his greatest idiosyncrasies.

Smith’s central error is his monetary theory, as presented in “On Money.” Smith believes that there is a fixed demand for money in a society, in the special sense that only a certain quantity of money will circulate and excessive sums will be exported (if the money is gold or silver) or be presented for redemption in gold (if the money is bank notes).

Imo, this is a theoretical economic regression from the predictive power of monetary thought in D. Hume‘s essays.

However, Smith understood very well that economic rent is a surplus:

https://henrygeorgefoundation.org/the-science-of-economics/economic-rent

The goal of the Brundtland Report remains relevant today; dynamic efficiency, dear Lucio Muñoz , is the economic key concept to research and develop into this scientific direction.

Dear Stephen, those are the old views of what was wrong from inside the box, from outside the box there is distorted dynamic efficiency, what the WCED called social and environmental unfriendliness or social and environmental exclusion and advocated so for social and environmental inclusion in our development....

But what is a the heart of the market, that if distorted leads in the long term, expansion after expansion, to over production, over consumption, over population dynamics; and therefore. to critical socio-environmental problems/pollution problems? Something which if optimal should be expected to lead to optimal production, optimal consumption and optimal population dynamics as Adam Smith expected? That is the answer to what was wrong.

And that wrong is what sustainable development thinking partially tries to solve through concepts of social and/or environmental friendly development. And that wrong is still in circular market thinking, and to bring attention that moving on from wrong to wrong is not the way to go in terms of socio-environmental friendliness as then we double down on the wrong....

Respectfullly yours;

Lucio

Dear friends, as you can see it is not easy to see the answer of this question from inside the box under knowledge gaps and this has perhaps to do with the fact that the ups and down in the evolution of development theory 1776-2023 is not clear from why and how the socio-environmental problem came along 1776-1987, to why the WCED 1987 chose sustainable development solutions instead of sustainability based ones, to why the UNCSD 2012 decided to go green markets FIRST, but then it went dwarf green markets creating the period of green market paradigm shift avoidance 2012-2022, and to why now that the world has been trying to leave traditional economic thinking behind 1987-2022 we have this push that started in 2023 in Europe to go circular economic thinking without even thinking or caring about what was wrong with non-circular traditional economic thinking that made it socialy and environmentally unfriendly as CIRCULARITY was not the problem leading to socio-environmental sustainability problems in 1987/WCED or leading to environmental sustainability problems in 2012/UNCSD.

To close that knowledge gap, I will be writing a set of 4 articles, and the last one will show how backward it is a la Thomas Kuhn to go from traditional market thinking to circular market thinking without making any corrections 37 years later after the WCED 1987 told us that the social and environmental unfriendliness under which traditional economic thinking flourishes created and drives socio-environmental unsustainability.

The first article of this series is shared below in good faith, as I am not here to convert anybody, I am here just to share ideas.

You can take a look at the article when you have time, it has some good food for thoughts

Sustainability thoughts 192: What are the sustainability consequences of assuming that flawed paradigms are golden paradigms? The case of the perfect traditional market.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379573172_Sustainability_thoughts_192_What_are_the_sustainability_consequences_of_assuming_that_flawed_paradigms_are_golden_paradigms_The_case_of_the_perfect_traditional_market

The following link could be of interest for your research project, dear Lucio Muñoz .

http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/135644#:~:text=Nature%3A,economic%20independence%2C%20and%20by%20ideology.

http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/about-encyclopedia

https://uia.org/

https://uia.org/membership/active

Have recommended your research article on paradigms; my focus is on economic methodology, i.e. am in support of your assumptions.

Wishing you continued success ! Best: stephen

I do appreciate you feedback and interaction Stephen.

Respectfully yours;

Lucio