World economic mode of the economic theory paradigm evolution

The article raises the problem of generalizing critical assessments of modern economics in the context of ontological, epistemological, methodological and ideological components of the paradigm of economic theory. The paper shows crisis manifestations of all four components at the current stage of world economic development. The methodological basis of the study are modern Western concepts of a new paradigm of economic theory, such as the multilevel paradigm and the “embedded” economy, as well as the original author's concept of cyclical modification of the dominant paradigm depending on the cyclical change of phases of long-term technological and world economic development. The author shows that the locomotive role of production technologies and protectionism contribute to the final discrediting of previous economic orthodoxy and clear the way for a new paradigm of economic theory. The phase of the locomotive role of transport technologies and the phase of free trade provide a “golden age” for the dominant orthodoxy, which attributes to itself the results of economic growth and welfare gains achieved within these phases by maximizing the scale effect. The phase of information technologies and the accompanying phase of globalism reveal significant paradigmatic shortcomings of the dominant orthodoxy, which, however, are temporarily mixed by incorporating the ideas of ontologically close, but epistemologically different economic schools. The author argues that the completion of the cycle of long-term technological and world economic development, consisting of the three specified phases, prepares the transition to a new paradigm and a new dominant orthodoxy of economic theory. The important role of the ideological (apologetic) component in the evolution of the paradigm at each phase is substantiated in the form of a change in the dominant political and economic groups that act as customers of the corresponding theories. The findings suggest that the new industrial revolution and the new world economic order are giving rise to a new elite layer — “industrial digitalists” — interested in a radical change in the paradigm of economic theory.

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