Time to Meet the Doughnut

L: How's that for a compelling title? Of course, it makes perfect sense if you read last week's blog. Thanks to the author of Doughnut Economics, Kate Raworth, who provided me with this drawing, here's the beating heart of her book:

The entire premise of the book is that today's "science" of economics is set up to encourage a winner-take-all approach with some vague hope of a trickle-down effect that raises the living standards of all. Raworth says that there is evidence that that is flat wrong, but even if it's right over some long time period, we don't really have that much time environmentally-speaking.

The central premise of Doughnut Economics is that the world's economies can only be sustainable over the long haul if policies and cultures accept that EVERYONE is entitled to those things listed in the center of the doughnut (the social foundation) and that economic activity cannot be based on decimating the earth's resources (the ecological ceiling).

The book provides seven ways that the accepted practices of capitalism can be changed to create a world where everyone is IN the doughnut--balanced in that zone where people are socially safe and not destroying the planet.

Rather than using GDP to measure economic success, the proposal is to use the Doughnut.