Ethics of Socioeconomics

The book analyzes socioeconomic through the lens of a lawyer. In the past decade the world has witnessed some severe financial and economic crises, espe­cially the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The author states that the socio-economic order has in the past four to five decades been thoroughly redesigned, generally favouring models that prio­ritize the free market over the public interest or even, more generally, government operation. He works out that during four to five decades, globalized, capitalist societies are facing a multiplicity of fundamental problems, such as: (1) increasing debt that severely burdens both the private and public sectors; (2) persistent poverty and an ever-increasing polarization between rich and poor, in addition to (3) intractable environmental problems that, fifty years after the Club of Rome's report entitled ‘Limits to growth’ (1972), has dragged the world into what in recent years has been referred to as "climate change."

The book explains why all this is the direct result of value choices made from the late Middle Ages onwards, when in the Western world the societal models of that time were increasingly abandoned for a societal model that came to rely on the primacy of economic interests. 

The book not only subjects the ethical choices but also examines various problems it has caused and probes for possible ways out.

This is an open access book.

Koen Byttebier holds a law degree (University of Ghent, 1989) and a doctoral degree obtained with a dissertation on ho­sti­le takeovers (University of Ghent, 1992). In 1992, he was appointed as a post­doctoral researcher (FWO) at the University of Ghent, before joining the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 1994. Pre­sently, he is a full Professor of Law (holding the degree of ‘Ordinary Professor’) in the De­partment of Pri­vate and Economic Law, VUB.

Koen Byttebier is the author of more than 30 research monographs and of nu­me­rous articles. He speaks regularly at na­tio­nal and in­­­ter­na­tional conferences. In his capacity as a (part-time) practi­cing lawyer, he has been consulted by both the Belgian Federal Go­vernment and the Flemish Government, for which he has pre­­pared and drafted a wi­de variety of new le­gislation, amongst which the Belgian Code of Economic Law, in addition to ac­­complishing some major re­structuring operations.

As of 2014, Koen Byttebier has published a variety of major international publications. He increasingly focused on research questioning the foundations of capitalism and began urging for a drastically different approach to the socioeconomic order. This paved the way to groundbreaking English-language research in this field, with, meanwhile, five English-language research monographs, published by Springer and VUBPRESS, in addition to publications in journals and referee books and invitations to various lectures. His 2017 monography Towards a New International Monetary Order implied an important breakthrough in this research, followed by various other English research monographs.