Doughnut Economics
Economics is broken. It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures. Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she reconstructs the character of 'rational economic man' and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature's resources -- and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century -- one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress. Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation. -- Back cover.
Stats for nerds
8recommend
12mentions
12people
2018–2026years
67% recommend25% neutral8% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The GDP should be banned as a metric for being a life quality proxy, it's insane how so many people still refer to it although proven to neglect so many parts of what counts into LQ. To OP: Go check out Doughnut Economics - the book does a good job clearing up economical fallacies & mismodelling of such things.
- On sources: I'm highly partial to the work of William Ophuls who's been writing on this topic for a half century. His PhD thesis was published in 1977 as Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (with an update in the early 1990s). That largely lays out the problematique, both in terms of resources and political dynamics. The book's old enough that many of its own projections can be tested, and I think these hold out exceptionally well, particularly in highlighting the (then future) rise of China as a global economic, political, and military force. Ophuls has gone on to suggest at least the framework of solutions, most especially in Plato's Revenge (2009), though that remains fairly high level. What really makes Ophuls's works tremendously valuable is his bibliographic notes which are comprehensive and, to use a favourite word of his, synoptic. The note for Ecology in particular covers much of the previous several decades' literature on growth and perspectives from both optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints, and Ophuls is exceedingly fair in considering both. I've gone back to many of those sources myself (Maddox, Kahn, Simon) to compare notes. I've actually typed out the note from Plato's Revenge, which captures a sense of his practice, though that focuses more on recent and political topics: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607050023/https://old.reddi...>. In that sense, Ophuls is an excellent entry point into the literature as a whole. He has a website at <http://www.ophuls.org/William_Ophuls/Home.html> though in various states of disrepair.
Ophuls's political-ecological approach is being carried on by Thomas Homer-Dixon: <https://homerdixon.com/writing/>
There are other authors: Bill McKibben's Eaarth (sic), Joel Magnusonn's The Approaching Great Transformation, the book Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, all of which I have to hand. Vaclav Smil has written his own damned library on resources and sustainability from a technical perspective, largely looking backwards though with some forward-looking elements. I particularly recommend Energy in World History (1992, 2019) and Energy and Civilization (2017). Energy Transitions (2016) tackles the specific question of converting to a sustainable-energy path: <Energy Transitions>. And there's a long list of other Smil publications.
Kate Rayworth's Doughnut Economics is another prescriptive work looking at ways forward. <https://www.kateraworth.com/>
The original Limits to Growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens) remains relevant, and is freely available online: <https://donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-availabl...>. I strongly recommend reading primary sources over hot takes, interpretations, and commentaries. It's also helpful to remember that LtG served not as a prescription but as an alarm: there's a clear problem and we've got to wake up to it. Sadly, more than 50 years onward, that alarm continues to be ignored by many (including within this thread).
The now-defunct Worldwatch Institute published an annual State of the World publication which was an anthology of articles on sustainability generally, from 1984--2017, and give an excellent sense of the breadth and progress of thinking on these topics. Those are mostly available via the Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/search?query=worldwatch+institute+state+...>
Worldwatch's founder, Lester R. Brown, has written numerous books, his latest covers this topic, The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy <http://www.earth-policy.org/press_room/C68/market_forces_dri...>
Looking at the energy picture alone, there's David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, which breaks down the technical picture, with a focus on Britain though applicable elsewhere, clearly and soberly. Freely available online: <http://www.withouthotair.com/>
That's just skimming the top of a huge literature. There are a tremendous number of different viewpoints, of topics and approaches, and of course disagreement. Contrary to the assertions of some, however, there are specific and actionable recommendations to be found. Looking into the bibliographies and notes of the works listed should launch you further in whatever direction you care to explore.
- Kate Raworth's book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist[0] addresses this area well and contains a lot of similar stories.
- It is a sensible request but an absurd demand.
Unless we first institute livable wages with sane working hours and paid commute time along with free childcare.
So that survival does not demand that people abuse their bodies with lack of sleep.
agreeing that externalities like house work, parenting, commuting exist, have cost, and need to be considered in a viable economy could be a great step.
Doughnut economics is one such approach.
https://www.ted.com/talks/kate_raworth_a_healthy_economy_sho...
- You mind find Kate Raworth's proposal interesting - 'doughnut economics':
https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Amsterdam's cityhall (NL) is piloting an implementation, so perhaps there is hope that it can go beyond a theoretical framework proposal.
- Forward looking:
Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Historical:
The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
General:
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
