Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Since publishing Doughnut Economics in 2017, renegade British economist Kate Raworth has become a phenomenon that mainstream economics largely declines to acknowledge but increasingly cannot ignore.
The diverse bioregionally focussed and globally collaborative regenerative cultures of the future will meet their needs in circular economies based on regeneratively grown biomaterials processed by renewable energy at a bioregional scale.
You do not need to be an economist to change the goal of your economy to well-being for people and the planet. Here’s how you can bring Doughnut economics to your community.
Despite the extreme difficulties and threats we’re facing, the potential for positive change at the moment is actually huge – including a move towards a much fairer, stabler and more efficient financial sector in Ireland.
We weren’t raised to be worker cooperators; we we’re raised to be employer or an employee. You know it’s a pioneer type of thing.
Our prevailing vision of social progress is fatally dependent on a false promise: that there will always be more and more for everyone.
If we are to be taken seriously about changing the goal “from GDP [growth] to the doughnut,” we better understand how that doughnut translates to GDP terms. Taking a “growth-agnostic” pill won’t cut it.
It might be a bit of a hunker down message, but it’s about focusing on people’s needs: security, resilience, and minimising risks.
Having spent a good deal of my life on projects intended to “save the world” (which decidedly does NOT want to be saved!), being confronted with the idea of sharing some of my thoughts about “activism” has provoked a flood of ideas about what to say on such an intriguing subject.
Autonomy refers to the capacity of a given system to self-manage. In other words, the more autonomy that a commons has, the less dependent it will be on external inputs.
A primary goal of the Community Economies literature is to “decenter” capitalism as the reference point for thinking about alternative economic projects. Why must everything be seen through the normative lens of capitalism?
However, deciding that we need to let go of GDP can only be the first step. More importantly, we are in need of answers to the question of what to measure if not GDP, and what to strive for if not economic growth.
