Frankenstein Economy

An economic system assembled from incompatible modes of production, exchange, and regulation: capitalist firms, state-owned enterprises, cooperatives, informal markets, and household production. No single logic governs it. It works (or limps along) because people navigate between these sectors, using cash in some contexts, favors in others, state subsidies elsewhere. The global economy is a Frankenstein Economy: high-tech finance alongside subsistence farming, platform gigs alongside unionized factories, cryptocurrency alongside barter.

Frankenstein Economy Example: “The local economy was a Frankenstein: a Silicon Valley startup, a state-owned utility, a worker cooperative cafe, and a black-market vegetable stand—all coexisting.”

Frankenstein Economics

The study of economies as patchworks of incompatible theories and models: neoclassical supply-demand alongside Keynesian demand management, behavioral economics alongside rational expectations, institutional economics alongside Marxist value theory. Frankenstein Economics admits that no single model captures reality, so it uses whatever works for the problem at hand—even if the assumptions contradict. It is pragmatic, anti-dogmatic, and suspicious of elegant unified theories.

Example: “His Frankenstein Economics used rational choice for consumer behavior, game theory for oligopolies, and Marxian crisis theory for finance—a monster that predicted the crash.”

Frankenstein Economy by Dumu The Void May 26, 2026