Modern, industrialized economics strives for endless growth. The social policies they promote, by their nature, lay waste to natural systems and exploit vulnerable populations. The result is global crises and disruptions, such as the 2008 financial meltdown, climate breakdown, even the COVID lockdown, and extreme wealth concentration and global inequality.
Renegade economist Kate Raworth brings a counter vision of human prosperity based on making economics fit 21st-century realities. She envisions running the world in a way that gives everyone what they need – food, homes, healthcare, and more – and saves the planet at the same time. She is known for her work on ‘doughnut economics,’ an economic model that balances essential human needs and planetary boundaries. Her work shows how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create regenerative and distributive economies by design.
Laid out in her book, Doughnut Economics, Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Kate is building on the insights of Hazel Henderson, host of this SSF webinar series and President of Ethical Markets. Hazel has been critiquing the limitations of economics and its statistics in steering complex industrial societies for 60 years. She is a pioneer in social indicators and quality-of-life research. I recommend reading her seminal New York Times Article from 1971, Economists vs. Ecologists, and another early work, Creating Alternative Futures.