https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/08/21/18879160.php
Worldview in scientific garb
Economics at German universities is based on unscientific assumptions and propagates egoism as the highest maxim of economic action.
Anyone involved in academic discourse on economic issues may get the impression that economics is a zone free of morality. Economic rationality is often equated with profit maximization—which, according to widespread assumption, automatically has a positive effect on the common good. The arbitrariness of the axioms on which economic science is based only becomes apparent when they are thoroughly questioned. Anyone striving for a more humane and sustainable economy must have the courage to question what seems self-evident.
by Christian Kreiß
[This article posted on 7/22/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/weltanschauung-im-wissenschaftsgewand.]
Today, economic science presents itself as a science, as its name suggests. However, this is not correct. Virtually all of today’s scientific analyses, models, essays, and policy recommendations on or about economics in the broadest sense are based on a small number of fundamental ideological assumptions or axioms. These fundamental assumptions themselves have nothing to do with science, but are purely ideological, or one could even say religious or irreligious assumptions. In my opinion, these assumptions and the political measures derived from them are not only wrong, but also very harmful to our society and our coexistence (1). Apart from the fact that these axioms are antisocial and corrupting, they mean that young people who study economics no longer have the opportunity to inform themselves independently, freely, and tolerantly about economic processes. This is because discussions, teaching, and research in economics are de facto based exclusively on these fundamental assumptions.
Anyone currently studying economics in Germany therefore enters, usually without knowing or realizing it, a hermetically sealed network of dogma in which they become trapped and struggle in vain to escape. All this happens very subtly and intelligently. Alternative opinions, analyses, and recommendations no longer exist in our economic science system, practically without anyone within the faculties or the general public really noticing.
Most university economists will say: I am free to think, say, and teach what I want; we have academic freedom. That is true. But only for those who have made it into the system, who have submitted to the basic assumptions in advance.
Not, however, for those who hold alternative opinions, who criticize or contradict the axioms.
Truly alternative opinions and fundamentally alternative approaches no longer exist in today’s mainstream economics. They are practically no longer discussed, but simply ignored. All this happens very subtly and quietly. As a result, economics students learn nothing about the fact that economics could be thought about and analyzed in a completely different, more human way, instead of the way young people are taught today, which is based heavily on selfishness, propagating selfishness, driving people toward selfishness—and thus ruining our society and the world in the long term.
I do not wish to make any personal accusations against my colleagues in economics; that is far from my intention. The vast majority of my colleagues are likeable and pleasant people, just like everyone else – they are simply convinced of their worldview, otherwise they would not hold it. But what most people do not think about is that they too are, in a sense, victims of the system.
I am concerned exclusively with systemic issues: Why does our economic science system, or rather belief system, function so well, so efficiently, so subtly, and so brilliantly intelligently in excluding other, alternative, unpopular opinions, approaches, and models? I am not making any personal accusations against economists.
The seven worldview assumptions of today’s economic science
———————————————————–
Directly or indirectly, our entire economic science system is based on the following seven basic assumptions or axioms:
– Compound interest is good, right, and important.
– Property rights are important and right (property rights theory).
– Companies must maximize their profits.
– Competition is important and good.
– Insatiability (greed).
– Consumers follow the model of homo economicus, are rational, and maximize their utility (utilitarianism).
– The invisible hand of the market ensures that the selfish behavior of individual market participants (households and companies) is transformed into the common good.
Science or worldview?
———————
It is easy to see that these seven basic assumptions or beliefs are not science but worldview:
Instead of insatiability or greed, for example, the well-known quote from Gandhi could be written as a guiding principle in economics textbooks:
“The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not for everyone’s greed.” (2)
Or statements by Lao Tzu: “There is no greater sin than to have many desires, there is no greater evil than not knowing satisfaction, there is no greater mistake than wanting to have.” (3)
Or one could also quote Martin Luther:
“There are some who think they have God and everything they need when they have money and possessions, and they boast of this so proudly and confidently that they care for no one else. Behold, these also have a god, whose name is Mammon, that is, money and possessions, on which they set their hearts, which is also the most common idol on earth.” (4)
If these were the guiding principles of our economic models, we would see completely different results and completely different policy recommendations.
Instead of competition, we could emphasize cooperation, as Christian Felber does so convincingly (5). Instead of unlimited accumulation of property, we could introduce an upper limit on property ownership. Christian Felber suggests 10 million euros (6).
Instead of maximizing profits for private shareholders, cooperative models and foundations oriented toward the common good could be proposed as business models for companies. Or simply, as was still common in the early 1980s when I studied economics: that the purpose of companies is simply to provide good products and services and not to maximize profits.
Instead of compound interest, we could teach Silvio Gesell’s idea that money should not generate interest income but systematically decrease in value, i.e., free money or demurrage money instead of our current fiat money. (8) Or one could discuss the Buddhist-inspired monetary model ideas of Karl-Heinz Brodbeck (9), who is also a strong critic of the ideological foundations of our economic sciences, as the title of one of his books shows: “The Questionable Foundations of Economics. A Philosophical Critique of Economic Sciences.” (10) Instead of utility maximisation and utilitarianism, as propagated above all by Nobel Prize winner for economics Gary Becker, one could propagate consideration, compassion and humanity.
In short, one could basically assume the exact opposite of all the above axioms. For this is not a matter of science, but of worldview, of religious or irreligious fundamental beliefs.
No academic career if you violate the seven axioms
————————————————–
In Germany – and, in my opinion, in most other Western industrialized countries – no one normally gets a professorship in economics if they violate even one of the axioms, let alone if they question several of them. This means that our economics departments are populated almost exclusively by people who adhere to the seven axioms above. Anyone who thinks differently will not be awarded a doctorate, let alone a postdoctoral qualification, and in most cases will not even be allowed to write a bachelor’s or master’s thesis. This does not mean that today’s professors are unpleasant or even dishonest people – quite the contrary. The vast majority of my colleagues are convinced of their theories and explanations and believe that they are teaching young people valuable and important knowledge.
How selfishness is propagated in economics
——————————————
Unfortunately, however, economics teaching is, in fact, directly or indirectly very much about propagating selfishness. This has also been demonstrated by various studies. (11) One of the most important and influential founders of modern economics, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, downright demonizes good, social behavior on the part of managers: Business leaders who do not pursue profit maximization but instead follow a social conscience, create jobs for the long-term unemployed, reduce discrimination, and avoid environmental pollution are abusing their power. They are hypocrites who squander other people’s money—namely that of shareholders—and are fraudsters who disregard democracy and undermine the foundations of a free society. (12) In short: managers who do good, who want to promote the common good instead of maximizing profits for shareholders, are evil. Interestingly, Milton Friedman still has a good reputation among economists today.
So: those who want social, responsible, good things create bad or evil things, and those involved in market activities who pursue exclusively their own selfish interests promote social welfare precisely by doing so, even though they did not intend to. This key idea is truly magnificent in its art of distortion. It transforms all selfishness into altruism. This legitimizes all selfishness in economic life. As a result, everyone can preach selfishness with a clear conscience. Taken to its logical conclusion, this idea, which is harmful to humanity, leads to the inevitable conclusion that an economist not only may, but must preach and promote selfishness.
Business ethics today
———————
The leading German textbook on business ethics consistently draws precisely this conclusion. In their book Wirtschaftsethik (Business Ethics), published in 2018, Christoph Lütge and Matthias Uhl do not shy away from singing the praises of self-interest:
“Within the appropriate framework, self-interest can be understood as a ‘modern form of charity’ (…). The traditional opposition between good, altruistic behavior and bad egoism no longer applies.“ (13)
It is worth examining these statements more closely. Self-interest is a modern form of charity. The word ”charity” is an allusion to the New Testament; the authors are saying, in effect, that Jesus would preach self-love instead of charity today. This brings us to the moral core. One of the core statements of the New Testament is turned on its head. Christianity is turned into its opposite. But this does not only apply to Christianity. Practically all other religions are based on overcoming selfishness, especially Buddhism and Islam, but also Judaism and shamanism.
The central statements of modern economics are therefore not only anti-religious at their core, but also destructive to religion. For if the core virtues of religions are destroyed, this is a frontal attack on religion itself. This is also demonstrated by the other key sentence in the book “Economic Ethics”: “The traditional opposition between good, altruistic behavior and bad egoism no longer applies.” (14)
A core idea of practically all religions is the distinction between good and evil, whereby altruism is almost always associated with good and egoism with evil. The abolition of this opposition means the abolition and reversal of all ethics and morality into their opposite.
However, this does not only apply to the two business ethicists or philosophers Lütge and Uhl. They are merely drawing the logical conclusion from economic theory. Hans-Werner Sinn, who was probably the best-known German economist for a long time, said something very similar:
“The economy is not an ethical enterprise. Anyone who approaches it with moral demands has not understood how the market economy works.” (15)
What Sinn fails to consider is that he himself stands on ideological ground by presupposing the seven basic axioms.
These few examples show that the foundations of our modern economic sciences lead deep into religious and ethical territory that has nothing to do with science. However, these ideological or religious, or rather anti-religious, foundations are rarely discussed, let alone seriously questioned. And anyone who questions them will not be awarded a chair in economics, or even a doctorate in economics.
The teaching system of today’s economics, when thought through to its logical conclusion, amounts to what Lütge and Uhl honestly sum up: the contrast between good altruism and bad egoism is abolished and should be abolished. Ethics and morality are abolished and should be abolished. The current economic system of thought, which is probably represented at most Western universities, is unethical, immoral, inhumane at its core and, in my opinion, leads to destruction.
Current counter-approaches to conventional mainstream economics only treat the symptoms and therefore come to nothing.
Today, there is a growing wealth of theories and courses in economics that deal with sustainability, corporate social responsibility, ecological behavior, external effects, and so on. These are very appealing approaches.
However, in my opinion, they will be structurally futile as long as the underlying axioms are not abolished.
As long as companies are forced to maximize profits, for example, all such well-intentioned approaches are likely to fail. This essentially leads to greenwashing, which is becoming increasingly widespread. (16)
Every economist should have the courage to name and eliminate the real evil: the false, harmful basic assumptions of our worldview. Profit maximization, utility maximization, compound interest, unlimited accumulation of wealth, selfishness, and greed will ensure that sustainability, CSR, and so on are reduced to placebo measures that lead to greenwashing, hypocrisy, and bureaucracy instead of a humane, environmentally friendly way of doing business, as many young people long for. This is throwing sand in the eyes of young students instead of telling them the truth. Many young people sense this too.
The fundamental evil of our scientific system: state coercion
————————————————————-
The core evil of the system described above, which ensures that the axioms cannot be touched, is state coercion in our higher education system. Both the establishment of new universities and their ongoing operation are subject to very strict government regulations: existing degree programs must be regularly accredited by the state. Accreditation is carried out by professors from other, related degree programs at other universities or by external accreditation agencies. Both the professors and the agencies are guided by the seven basic axioms. Anyone who violates one or more of the seven basic assumptions is not accredited and can therefore no longer teach. Study programs or even universities that think differently are thus de facto banned by the state.
This also shapes the leading Western economics journals. Here, too, the reviewing economists who decide whether an article is published or not have all gone through the seven basic axioms, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, have internalized them, and usually react with dismay when someone seriously questions one of the axioms. Scientific journals therefore also cement the seven axioms.
What we urgently need to do
—————————
It would be incredibly easy to set up a free, tolerant, and pluralistic education system in which most teachers of economics would no longer have to preach selfishness directly or indirectly: through education vouchers for all students:
Every young person qualified to study, not just economics students, receives a monthly education voucher, for example in the amount of the current actual monthly costs of studying, and can use it to apply to the university or college of their choice. If they are accepted, the university receives payment through the voucher.
The establishment of universities will be simplified and made less bureaucratic. The institutions responsible for the universities must be based on the principles of the Basic Law and must not operate for profit, but rather as non-profit limited liability companies or in another non-profit legal form. We no longer need ministries of science. This saves costs and, above all, a huge amount of bureaucracy.
The establishment of new universities under the voucher system would ensure that the educational and scientific competition between universities would ensure that the best ones prevail. These are likely to be the ones with the best university teachers and the most and best applicants. Within a few years, it will become clear to companies and the civil service which universities produce the most suitable graduates.
All types of state-mandated accreditation—which are usually bureaucratic, lengthy, inefficient, and restrictive—will become superfluous. Good, free universities—based on the principles of the Constitution—will produce good, free graduates who will also prove themselves in business and public service.
Let us give young people the chance to receive a free, pluralistic, comprehensive, and tolerant education! Let us educate young people to become strong, independent thinkers! Let us introduce an independent, free, and tolerant higher education system!
Sources and notes:
(1) See Kreiß, Christian, Das Mephisto-Prinzip in unserer Wirtschaft (The Mephisto Principle in Our Economy), tredition, Hamburg 2019. The book can be downloaded here as a PDF file free of charge: http://www.menschengerechtewirtschaft.de
(3) https://schuledesrades.org/public/taoteking/sdr-q-5-4-46
(4) Martin, Luther, Large Catechism
(5) See Felber, Christian, Economy for the Common Good: The Alternative Economic Model for Sustainability, 2010, Vienna
(6) Ibid.
(7) See Siebenbrock Heinz/Kreiß Christian, Blenden Wuchern Lamentieren – Wie die Betriebswirtschaftslehre zur Verrohung der Gesellschaft beiträgt (Blinding, Proliferating, Lamenting – How Business Administration Contributes to the Brutalization of Society), Munich and Berlin 2019
(8) Gesell, Silvio, The Natural Economic Order Through Free Land and Free Money, first published in 1916, or Helmut Creutz, The Money Syndrome – Paths to a Crisis-Free Market Economy, first published in 1993
(9) Cf. Brodbeck, Karl-Heiz, Phenomenology of Money, 2023, Zurich
(10) See Brodbeck, Karl-Heinz, 1998, Darmstadt
(11) Pühringer, Stephan; Bäuerle Lukas (2018): What economics education is missing: the real world, in: International Journal of Social Economics, in: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-04-2018-0221
(12) See Friedman, Milton, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits, the New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970: When discussing socially responsible behavior instead of profit maximization by managers, he speaks of “hypocritical window-dressing because it harms the foundation of a free society,” of ‘fraud’ (fraud against shareholders), of “nonsense (that) … clearly harms the foundations of a free society,” and of schizophrenia: “I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen,” and even by a “suicidal impulse” when they do not maximize profits.
(13) Lütge, Christoph, Uhl, Matthias (2018), Munich, Vahlen, page 33
(14) Ibid.
Interview with Hans-Werner Sinn, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, April 19, 2005
(16) Kreiß, Christian, Siebenbrock Heinz (2019), Blenden Wuchern Lamentieren: Wie die Betriebswirtschaftslehre zur Verrohung der Gesellschaft beiträgt (Blinding, Proliferating, Lamenting: How Business Administration Contributes to the Brutalization of Society), Berlin, p. 166ff.
–
Christian Kreiß, born in 1962, studied and earned his doctorate in economics and economic history at LMU Munich. He worked as a banker for nine years, including seven years as an investment banker. Since 2002, he has been a professor of business administration with a focus on investment, finance, and economics. He is the author of seven books. His most recent publication is “Gekaufte Wissenschaft” (Bought Science). He has been invited to the German Bundestag three times as an independent expert (Greens, Left Party, SPD) and has given numerous television, radio, and magazine interviews, lectures, and published articles. Kreiß is a member of ver.di and Christians for a Just Economic Order. For more information, visit menschengerechtewirtschaft.de.