Abstract This paper explores the implications of the widespread success of the term circular economy in the institutional and public debate. The concept of circular economy in itself implies a logical contradiction: on the one hand, the concept acknowledges the dependence of the economy on biophysical flows; on the other hand, the proposed solution—a business model guaranteeing a full decoupling of the economy from natural resources—seemingly ignores that biophysical processes are subject to thermodynamic constraints. A biophysical view of the sustainability predicament—the flows exchanged between the technosphere and the biosphere — is depicted to show that the idea of a full decoupling is simply due to ignorance of the knowledge generated in (inter)disciplinary scientific fields other than the dominant economic one. The success of economics as an ‘elite folk science’ is explained by the need of the establishment to ignore uncomfortable knowledge that would destabilize existing institutions. The success of the term circular economy can be seen as an example of socially constructed ignorance in which folk tales are used to depoliticize the sustainability debate and to colonize the future through the endorsement of implausible socio-technical imaginaries. A strategy that can lead to an irresponsible management of expectation: implausible master narratives are impossible to govern. Rather than continuing to impose technocratic plans, as if we knew the optimal thing to do, Post-Normal Science suggests that it is much more effective and responsible to adopt a flexible management approach, exploring the ability of self-organization of social-ecological systems.

中文翻译：

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从精英民间科学到循环经济的政策传奇

摘要 本文探讨了循环经济一词在制度和公共辩论中的广泛成功的含义。循环经济的概念本身就蕴含着一个逻辑矛盾：一方面，该概念承认经济对生物物理流量的依赖；另一方面，提议的解决方案——一种保证经济与自然资源完全脱钩的商业模式——似乎忽略了生物物理过程受热力学约束的影响。可持续性困境的生物物理学观点——技术圈和生物圈之间的流动——被描绘成表明完全脱钩的想法仅仅是由于对（跨）学科科学领域产生的知识的无知，而不是占主导地位的经济一。经济学作为一门“精英民间科学”的成功可以解释为，当权者需要忽视会破坏现有制度稳定的令人不安的知识。循环经济一词的成功可以被视为社会建构无知的一个例子，其中民间故事被用来使可持续性辩论非政治化，并通过支持难以置信的社会技术想象来殖民未来。一种可能导致对期望的不负责任管理的策略：无法控制令人难以置信的主叙事。与其继续强加技术官僚计划，就好像我们知道最好的事情一样，后规范科学建议采用灵活的管理方法，探索社会生态系统的自组织能力更有效和负责任.