Ecological economics has been labelled both a subfield of mainstream neoclassical economics, in a modern positivist tradition, and a post-normal science, in a postmodern constructionist tradition. This chapter starts by explaining the arguments for and meaning of pluralism. It reveals the contradictions of its ecological economic advocates and particularly criticise their failure to reject orthodox mainstream economics and instead present apologetic arguments for continued use of its methodology and methods. The chapter next turns to the foundational positions that can create a positive alternative social ecological economics. Employing critical realism as an aid, it works through a series of philosophical presuppositions - reality independent of humans, truth in science, limits to empirical knowledge, how we can have knowledge in a changing world and the similarities across social and natural sciences. The chapter brings together various reflections on how knowledge can be created.

In order to provide firm foundations for social ecological economics a basic understanding of issues relevant to developing scientific knowledge is required. This chapter provides an overview of the history and philosophy of modern science as it developed in Europe and then spread. Following the historical overview, it proceeds to a more detailed explanation of logical empiricism, as developed by the Vienna Circle, not least because empirical claims have been core to environmentalism, but also because of the general tendency to refer to ‘positivism’ as if this were some unified singular school of thought. Officially, economists follow a rigorous and scientific epistemological approach connected to logical empiricism. This sets a procedure for gaining knowledge on the basis of logical deductive theory development, leading to hypotheses which are meant to be empirically tested by observation, resulting in validation (whether verification, falsification or confirmation) – the hypothetico-deductive methodology.

This chapter uses evidence from a curriculum review of seven universities across the UK to show how the philosophy which underpins econocracy is being passed down to the next generation of economic experts. The curriculum review analyses 174 economics modules using the course outlines and exams to illustrate that economics students are taught to memorise and regurgitate a narrow body of subject matter not think independently or critically.

This concluding chapter addresses the question of why so few senior bankers have borne the consequences of market manipulation carried out by their subordinates. It argues that the huge fines imposed on banks have failed, both in terms of justice and in terms of bringing about changes in culture and behaviour. Tracing the changes in the senior management regime from the 1990s to the present, it weighs up the possible means of ensuring that senior figures are held responsible in the future.

Chapter 4 details the history of how the discipline of economics came to be so narrow and the more recent student led movements to reform it. It also includes a critique of the new CORE syllabus.

This chapter sets out the ways in which other banks manipulated LIBOR, using the same techniques and for the same reasons. As the Financial Services Authority’s ‘final notice’ to UBS makes clear, the methods used were due in large part to one trader moving from one bank to another, so that networks of contacts were established.