Climate Change as the Basis for Creating a New Economic Theory

Purpose: The article dwells on possible transformations in the paradigm of socio-economic development of modern world civilization which will be caused by changes in the Earth’s biosphere (in the context of climate change), namely those changes in economic theory essential for developing a new economic policy. Design/methodology/approach: Research methods: scientific and philosophical analysis of texts and theoretical design. Findings: What, in the economic mainstream, underlies the pathological features of the world economy that lead all the humanity to the climatic apocalypse? This is an ultimate subjectivity which manifests itself in abandoning the category of “value” in the modern economic theory. The discussion about the problem of value is potentially of great practical importance. It is, in essence, the discussion about the legitimacy of the entire modern world financial and economic order. Modern system of floating exchange rates will lose it legitimacy in case great many economists, managers, politicians return to the idea of the objectivity of value. This may be viewed as one of the necessary prerequisites for overcoming the modern socio-ecological crisis of world civilization, the climatic aspect being part of it. Originality/value: As the whole experience of world civilization shows, new ideas replace old ones when a new generation grows, for which these ideas are an organic part of their view of the world. Therefore, a change in the financial and economic paradigm should begin with changes in the textbooks of economics.