Books
Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth 2015
Raworth is an economist with positions at both Oxford and Cambridge. She challenges some of the core assumptions of conventional economics, including the frankly bizarre notion that people behave entirely rationally. She argues that GDP is the wrong measure of how well an economy is doing and we should include the contribution of domestic work and ‘the commons’ i.e. shared resources within society.
The doughnut of the title is the idea that we need a social foundation, so no one lacks the basics of life (the inner ring of the doughnut), and an ecological ceiling, which is the planet’s capacity (the outer ring). Economics should lead us to live between these two i.e. within the doughnut.
Finally she argues that neverending growth is neither possible nor desirable, because it is destroying the very ecosystems we depend on. Therefore we should be agnostic about growth, seeing it neither as the goal nor the enemy, and instead use other measures that are more relevant to human wellbeing.
Simplistically suggesting we should give up all of our comforts to tackle the climate emergency is, frankly, never going to happen. Hugely refreshing to read someone persuasively exploring how we can harness economics, rather than ignoring the economic impact of the massive changes we need to make, especially on the less wealthy.