Strategic path dependency
Nature
Economic systems, even if inefficient, and social systems are hard to change despite changing circumstaznces because they follow paths detrermined by earlier institutional choices. The initial choice of a particular technology, for example, "locks" an economy into a sequence of adaptive investments that block the later adoption of more efficient technologies.
Claim
As a result of path dependency, anyone who imagines that the global capitalist market system is somehow going to follow, through its own initiative, a qualitatively different path than that already traced, is seriously deluded and misguied.
Counter-claim
The effects of a path continue to undermine its supportive base (both within society and the environment). They will as a result catastrophically self-correct unless a deliberate choice is made to modify the nature of economic growth towards sustainable development.
Aggravates
Value(s)
Type
(J) Problems under consideration