Learn English – Meaning of the phrase “the thinking goes”

I found this from a website, which I think is a good answer for this question.

It is an odd construction, and seems a little clumsy to me. People don't usually talk about "a thinking" in English, but somehow it has made it into a couple of expressions, "the thinking goes" and "that is his thinking on the matter".

People use "the thinking goes" the same way they would use "the theory goes" or "the story goes", when describing the elements in a train of thought (instead of describing the details of a theory, or the events in a story).

"Goes" means "proceeds onwards", as if to say, "here are the different parts, and they occur in this order". "That's how the story goes" means "that's what happens in the story" (literally: "that's how the events in the story proceed").

"That's how the thinking goes" means "that's how this idea (or thought, or theory) is constructed".

The clause "The thinking goes," is like a label saying that the rest of the sentence is (still) part of a particular train of thought. This almost always indicates that a writer is trying to describe someone else's opinion or theory, not the writer's own. (It would be strange to distance oneself from one's own opinion in this way. And when talking about one's own thoughts, one should use "my thinking goes" instead). Today, economic theory suggests that good resource management requires ownership, either private or public. If not, the thinking goes, then self-interest will lead to overuse and destruction of shared resources. In the first sentence, the writer starts to discuss an idea from economic theory. In the second sentence, the writer adds more details about the idea. In total, the writer quotes economic theory as saying: Good resource management requires ownership, either private or public. If not, then self-interest will lead to overuse and destruction of shared resources.

This writer has used "the thinking goes" to let the reader know that the second sentence is not his own opinion, but just a continuation of the economic theory (the "thinking") mentioned in the first sentence. He or she could have written "the theory goes" or "theory goes" or even "the theory says" or "according to theory" instead, but perhaps didn't want to overuse the word "theory". :-)

It's almost as if he or she had written: If not, (here's some more of that economic theory I mentioned), then self-interest will lead to overuse and destruction of shared resources.

When you take out "the thinking goes", sentence number 2 is a tiny bit ambiguous. While it seems likely the writer is still quoting ideas from economic theory, it's quite possible that he is now expressing his own opinion about the dire consequences of self-interest.

Remove people, the thinking goes, and you remove costs.

Here, "the thinking goes" sounds as if it refers to some opinion which the writer has heard someone else express, somewhere; it might refer to "what some people think", or perhaps to "what most corporate managers think". it's equivalent to

Here's an idea (which I have heard someone else express): Remove people, and you remove costs.

Remove people, it is thought, and you remove costs.

It doesn't mean "logically, then..." although it might look like it, being so often thrown in the middle of all sorts of logically connected thoughts.

When there's no context (that is to say, when no idea or "thinking" (ugh) is already being discussed), "The thinking goes," at the start of a sentence could be substituted with any of these: (from most to least neutral in tone) "According to theory," ... fairly neutral, doesn't say the idea is popular "It is thought that " "It is commonly thought that " "The conventional wisdom is that " ... presents the idea as very popular!

In mid-sentence, after a comma, you could substitute "it is thought," "it is commonly thought," "according to conventional wisdom,"