Kate Raworth asks us to consider a new meaning of progress...
Instead of pursuing endless growth, it is time to pursue well-being for all people as part of a thriving world, with policymaking that is designed in the service of this goal. This results in a very different conception of progress: in the place of endless growth we seek a dynamic balance, one that aims to meet the essential needs of every person while protecting the life-supporting systems of our planetary home.
When we turn away from growth as the goal, we can focus directly on asking what it would take to deliver social and ecological well-being, through an economy that is regenerative and distributive by design. There are many possibilities – such as driving a low-carbon, zero-waste industrial transformation, with a green jobs guarantee, alongside free public transport, personal carbon allowances, and progressive wealth taxes.
Policies like these were, only a decade ago, considered too radical to be realistic. Today they look nothing less than essential.
@breadandcircuses I asked a financial adviser friend about how markets seek value by creating scarcity. He agreed. Then I asked why, then, the values of nature, of functioning ecosystems, of biodiversity, etc. were nut increasing as they became scarcer. He agreed in principal, but couldn't really tell me why.
And the answer is "value to whom?" If.the value is not in the owners of all the capital, those who all of this idea we call money, then it doesn't exist. But we have numbers, and more of us value the forests over the cash printed when we cut them down. So we need to figure out how to leverage those numbers to work against the capital hoarders, and then we need to redefine capital.
@breadandcircuses The word "progress", like "fair", has different meanings for the Left and Right. It's an analogy to a journey but they have never wanted to arrive at the same destination. The Centre are willing to compromise, so are despised by both groups :-)
@breadandcircuses Doughnut Economics was a book that blew me away. So many of my ingrained ideas about economy got a good shakeup. A book that changed my world perspective