An AP story reports that the head of the IMF thinks “the global economy faces a period of uncertainty.”

You don’t say?

I guess the days of a predictable global economy, where perfect markets operated with transparency and always lived up to promises of increased prosperity for all, are coming to an end. No longer will we be able to just sit back and enjoy the fruits of our near certainty about market behavior.

It really is such a shame. Economists have such an outstanding track record of being able to tell us all exactly what will happen in the future. Thanks to the certainty of their prognostications we were able to avoid surprises like a technology bubble, an Asian currency crisis, a downturn in the housing market, or a sub-prime lending crisis.

And that doesn’t even mention what a good job economic analysis has done at correctly predicting the consequences of a massive expansion of global trade without safeguards in place to protect human rights, traditional communities, or the planet.

Just as promised by the economists at the IMF we now have a world filled with ever-increasing wealth for all people alongside with the rapid expansion of democracy and political freedom and far fewer wars and civil conflicts.

It really is a sad that we can no longer rely on the perfect science of economics to help steer our global policy decisions.

Of course, I’m joking here. The point I’m trying to make is that economic uncertainty is not news. The economy is always uncertain. If we knew how the economy was going to perform, no one would ever make money buying and selling stocks, currency, or any other economic instrument for that matter and we wouldn’t see huge amounts of social and environmental suffering brought on by supposedly “beneficial” economic activity.

I think this is an important point when it comes to RAN’s work because the people who oppose implementing just and environmentally sound policies in business and government so often put forth supposedly certain economic arguments to justify their positions.

They will say things like “if we made that kind of change, it would hurt our business and all of our employees.” Usually we counter those arguments by trying to point out that the analysis itself is wrong. I think, however, that another important point is that economic analysis does not generate prefect predictions and that we cannot use it as the sole guide in our decision making.

Too often, we’ve seen economics, and the myth of the certainly of its predictions, used to justify horrendous and offensive business practices. At the core of that justification is the assumption that our economy is utterly predictable and that the field of Economics has very accurate tools for making those predictions. Frankly, I think it is about time that we did away with both of these assumptions (based on overwhelming empirical evidence) and looked toward business and policy decision making based not only on economics, but on democratic will, ethical concerns, respect for traditional ways of life.