Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist Hardcover – March 22, 2017

This is an incredible book, but what is most incredible of all is that after ten months of availability it currently ranks 40k+ in Amazon’s sales ranking and has only 40 reviews. That still puts it in the top tier of books, mind you, but this book should be in a tier by itself. It is truly transformative. (I only discovered it due to a comment written in response to the review of another book.)Kate Raworth, who trained in economics at Oxford, has never quite felt comfortable in her chosen field of study. And for good reason. The neoliberal economic model that has guided us for the last three or four decades, based on fundamental assumptions that pre-date us all by several generations, are not so much flawed as they are misaligned, to the point of actual destruction, to the social, economic, political, and environmental world in which we live the 21st Century.As an economics major myself back in the 1970s, and a corporate warrior who lived, breathed, and trusted the neoliberal creed for four subsequent decades, I am both an unlikely and uber-supporter of Raworth’s perspective and ideas.The markets and the consumer are decidedly not efficient; as every leading economist has assumed but every businessperson knows is bullocks. If they were, strategic planning would be a lot more straightforward and companies would be a lot more consistently successful. Companies would not have to constantly reinvent themselves, the turnaround experts and bankruptcy attorneys would have little to do, and investors could take long holidays on the private islands they could easily afford.The resources we rely on are not unlimited. Why are we arguing about the science of climate change? Look around, and if you still don’t see it, sit down and take an inventory of the resources you personally consume and plot it against whatever happiness index you like. The imbalance, you will quickly conclude, is absurd.I lived as an ex-patriate industrialist in a part of the world where you could not drink the water or, on many days, breathe the air. On both counts I am being quite literal. And I can tell you that on both counts nothing else matters. Now back in the US Midwest I can tell you both that I continue to pay the price and that our collective attitude here in the developed world toward these issues is conscious but dismissive. In short, we have been spared true understanding in the same way the blind are spared having to look at the ubiquitous “comparative selfie” that seems to be the single most transformative accomplishment of social media at the moment.We do not assign value to the economic inputs and the assets that really matter. There is no place on the balance sheet for engagement or innovation, and nowhere is there an accounting for shared (what Raworth calls common) assets, like safety, education, infrastructure, the country’s defenses, etc. We’re measuring well-being by the quality of the creases in our trousers.I could go on, but there is no need. Raworth has already completed that task. Which is why this book should be required reading for every adolescent in every corner of the world. The universe is interconnected in ways that we have known, but largely ignored, since the beginning of time. We see the world in a linear framework that reflects and reinforces our deductive worldview in which logic and reason progress from left to right and down to up. Our top is where our smarts reside. Our backs contain the backbone that carries the weight of our ever-extending bellies (mine at least).Nowhere in economics has this been more obvious or more damaging to our long-term interests than our pre-occupation with economic growth. It’s not an assumption, really. It’s a necessity. As we’re reminded daily, we need economic growth to keep people employed and wages rising. Without new air going in each and every moment, the balloon deflates. Doesn’t that mean, however, that at some point the balloon reaches its innate capacity and ultimately bursts?Raworth’s perspective is spot on and the writing is excellent. She has an obvious knack of distilling what may at first seem complex down to the simple and straightforward without losing anything in the translation.I think of the debate in more personal terms. We currently see our world through a very individual-centric lens. In economics, as Raworth covers here, the macro exists to serve the micro. In politics we are motivated by individual rights and freedoms. In medicine we focus on individual health and well-being. Even in psychology we are absorbed with personal happiness and personal measures of purpose and contentment.The result is that our political, social, economic, and even religious spheres of influence operate in independent isolation. And that was okay in the past since there were far fewer of us, resources were in abundance, and we lived and acquired information and knowledge in a largely local ecosystem.But technology, population growth, and constant advances in science have changed all that. Those spheres are now completely inter-connected. Social media drives politics. Politics drives social identity. Economics drives social injustice. The need for security impinges religious freedom.Raworth’s donut is the perfect visual analogy for the need to think less in terms of absolutes and more in terms of balance. I also think of it in terms of balancing the deductive Western worldview with the more inductive Eastern worldview. Most importantly, we must learn to think in terms of “we” rather than “I.”All of our systems of influence, from the political to the economic, must be transformed to promote collective balance rather than individual hegemony.In the last sections of the book, Raworth addresses the question of the era: Can the plane of economic growth, as we currently define it, continue to soar ever upward; must it level out, and if so how do we fulfill our economic expectations; or is it time to land and make do?As with the rest of the book Raworth does the conundrum justice and lays out all of the options thoroughly and with clarity. I think there is only one element that is not missing, but perhaps deserves more emphasis.We continue to treat economics, politics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and the hard sciences as distinct and discrete spheres of knowledge and influence. With advances in technology that have entirely transformed all aspects of our lives, that is simply no longer possible. We must take a page from our leaders in science who are quickly integrating all functional disciplines into, essentially, one. That is how the universe ultimately works.One of the arguments for pushing the plane higher and higher is the recognition that democracy, as we have known it, will die if we don’t. It is, however, already dying, if not already dead. The democratic justification for growth, in other words, is a specious argument. We must redefine what it means to be free.To borrow a page from Darwin, none of the current disciplines will give up its identity quietly (With perhaps the exception of philosophers, who have largely given up or gone into hiding. Sadly.). Each will fight to the death to preserve its own privilege.It’s a bit like the game of Jenga. Who goes first?I won’t say Raworth would endorse this priority but she certainly makes the case for it. I think the first to go has to be the notion of shareholder supremacy. It is an anachronism of the most abusive kind, positing, as Raworth notes, employees as the ultimate outsiders looking in. It’s an unsustainable model. And it’s pure fallacy. To say that today’s investors own our corporations is like saying that the gamblers own the casinos. (At least in the case of gambling, the gamblers at least set foot in the casino.) As in the case of poker, the gamblers may own the pot, but not the cards, the table, or the dealer.And, as Raworth futher notes, changing the perspective will require a complete transformation of the process by which we currently manage our largest corporations. So be it. If it doesn’t start there, I don’t think any of the other transformative needs are feasible.Beyond that I believe that the only viable option for transformative change is to address the problem from the consumption and expectation side of things. We just don’t need all of this “stuff” in order to live fulfilling lives. We can and should live much more locally. And technology has given us the perfect opportunity.What really matters in life is to think and dream globally and the Internet has given us that opportunity at next to zero cost. The next step should be an easy one although no gambler ever got rich betting against the power and resilience of those entrenched interests who wish to protect the status quo. (Which is why our politics are such a mess.)At any rate, this really is a great book and I do hope we can collectively push it to the top of the bestseller list where it belongs. It’s a discussion we need to have, not just with our economists, but with our children, our colleagues, and our loved ones. (Not to imply we don’t love our children.)

Like many economists, Ms. Raworth has gone from describing economies to prescribing Marxist solutions to a perfectly fine market based economy where tweaks and adjustments to products and services help improve those products and services. This is the prescription of the Great Reset. But don't worry, you'll own nothing, have no privacy or freedom, rent what you need and have it delivered by drone, share your living room and bed when you aren't there, and be happy about it! This book has been adopted as the principal economic philosophical text by the Shi Institute for sustainability at my Alma Mater, Furman University, whose president is an avowed Marxist and Communist sympathizer. .... Ms. Raworth uses the tired and failed ideas peddled by Limits to Growth report of the late 1960's and the Club of Rome to justify State control and distribution of 'limited resources'. In her dystopian dream, somehow everyone is a 'stakeholder', which in practice means that the State and willing private corporations speak for said stakeholders and determine what may or may not be an appropriate business. The approved businesses are ostensibly co-owned by stakeholders, which effectively means the State and Private Corporate interests, which is the classic definition and components of Fascism. In this theater of the absurd, biological gender is a social construct, but the "state" and "society" are living, breathing entities. The state determines "the common good", or as Hitler called it, "the Greater Good", and demands self sacrifice for society, or the Fatherland, or for Racial Purity, or in this case, Racial Equality and to preserve Mother Earth. Of course, those pesky individuals who would rather go their own way, pursue their own dreams, etc., may take exception to being told what they must do and believe. These people are dangers to the authority of the state, and so are initially demonized, and then dehumanized. In this case, they will be labeled as existential threats to the very survival of the Earth and Biosphere. Once dehumanized, they can be rounded up and 'deprogrammed' in forced labor camps, or just eliminated. Elizabeth Warren embraces this philosophy by calling for anyone / everyone who disagrees with the Climate Catastrophe opinion to be prosecuted and jailed. Ms. Raworth soft peddles this totalitarian garbage as being necessary as a 21st century economic plan, but her colossal ignorance of history renders this book the label of propaganda at its worst. This economic philosophy, embodied in the so called Great Reset, will be the end of creative market based economies and land ownership and the freedoms that go along with those things. At that point, you will have a social credit score based on your sheepish compliance with the dictates of the state, and deviation therefrom will result in 'ghosting' - a more permanent form of the current cancel culture, wherein even your ability to house and feed yourself will be revoked by the state, which never gave you the right to begin with. This book is pure garbage based on lies and incorrect presumptions. That said, everyone should read it to understand what is coming.

This is a very readable book on how to rethink economic systems to make economics work for everyone, rather than the system we have today. Raworth looks at a number of features of our economic system, puts them in historical context, and offers some ideas for change.Her key idea has been the "donut model" for economics that tries to look at the wider system traditional economics is embedded in and uses this to recast existing systems to better meet the needs of everyone. My sense is that the goal she is seeking is very worthwhile, however, how we get there is not going to be easy. So much has to change, and partial change of some elements may not prove possible. There will certainly be huge resistance from those people and institutions that have benefitted from the existing system. As we have seen with attempts to decarbonize the economy to mitigate global heating, these vested interests are very hard to get past. Changing the whole economic system may be impossible, and need a catastrophe to restart with the donut as the guiding design feature. I hope not.Well worth a read as a way to think somewhat "out of the box" of conventional economic systems. It is left to the reader on how the ideas can be made more prescriptive and then executed.

I, of course, agree with the author on the truly nefarious aspects of relentless pursuit of GDP growth from the global economy, and yes, alternative thinking and metrics are required. I just don’t see any political will to change this, and social attempts to do so are not enough. Perhaps change will come, but it will take more than just a generation of doughnut economists and social enterprises to achieve such a substantial accomplishment, and thus this book seems to me a bit over optimistic and utopic.

On the various occasions when I took courses in economics starting almost fifty years ago, the lecturers were careful to point out the limitations of concepts like GDP. However, the rest of the courses always put these doubts to one side and carried on as if they did not exist. Ms Raworth provides a powerful model for thinking about economics that includes the whole system. Undoubtedly this book deserves 10/10 for its analysis. Unfortunately it does not continue so well when it comes to prescriptions. She treats us to a string of "feel-good" anecdotes of approaches which, undoubtedly valuable and effective, are only shown to work in relatively small applications. Further, having made the correct point about the importance of energy in driving growth she fails to understand the full potential of current developments renewables especially wind and battery storage. I am a retired engineer with a career in a wide range of energy industries, what I see is the emerging generation of off-shore wind machines 15MW floating units moored in deep water on the continental shelf as a massive game changer. With almost unlimited supplies of renewable energy available many of the constraints on the doughnut will change. For example: if you have unlimited supplies of clean energy water is not a problem. Back in 1848 Marx massively underestimated the remaining scope for technical innovation and his revolution was postponed indefinitely; I rather suspect that Ms Raworth is in the same place.

The economy as structured today is seriously flawed and has grave repercussions on the human condition - as of 2015 the world's richest 1% now own more wealth than all the other 99% put together - while the sustainability of our planet, due to human activity, is under unprecedented stress. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a radical restructuring of the economy, reorienting its aims and priorities.Today's economy is divisive and degenerative by default, Tomorrow's economy must be distributive and regenerative by design.The author, Kate Raworth was eminently qualified for writing the book and in the process articulating her vision for tomorrow's economy. An economist by training, she has worked during the last two decades in environmental and human development studies at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Oxfam, the United Nations Development Program and the Overseas Development Institute in the villages of Zanzibar. The book is the product of this labor and the cumulative experience she acquired.The author has an appreciation for the power of the picture. So, she depicted her vision of tomorrow's economy as having the shape of a Doughnut. The inner surface of the Doughnut represents a social foundation of well-being that no one should fall below, and the outer surface, an ecological ceiling of planetary pressure that we should not go beyond. Between the two lies a safe and just space for all.The author, in the body of the book, proposes and elaborates on seven ways to think like a twenty-first century economist and at the same time for each of those seven ways, the spurious image that has occupied our minds, how it came to be so powerful, and the damaging influence it has had.The ways she proposes are briefly described below:Change the goal of pursuing GDP growth to investing efforts in meeting the human rights of every person within the means of our life giving planet;see the big picture; draw the economy anew, embedding it within society and within nature, and powered by the sun; this new deviation invites new narratives: about the power of the market, the partnership of the state, the core role of the household and the creativity of the commons; nurture human nature: the new self-portrait reveals that we are social, interdependent, approximating, fluid in values, and dependent upon the living world; get savvy with systems: manage the economy as an ever-evolving complex system; design to distribute: it is a recognition that there are many ways to design economics to be far more distributive of the value they generate; create to regenerate: this century needs economic thinking that unleashes regenerative design in order to create a circular - not linear economy and to restore humans as full participants in Earth's cyclical processes of life; and finally, be agnostic about growth - what we need is economics that make us thrive, whether or not they grow.The author is, of course, fully cognizant of the inherent difficulties of the exercise due to the combination of entrenched beliefs, interests, and power. But the skeptical reader, should always remember that the present structure of the economy does not have the power of physical law because it is a human construct amenable to change albeit through vigorous and sustained effort.

Early on in her book, the author states that to make a change (in economic theory for example), it is not enough to just point out the flaws of current status, you need to come up with a strong, alternative approach.Well, quite disappointingly, this book goes as far as pointing out a number of issues in nowadays economic theory (some of which quite obvious) without then offering the above mentioned alternative solution.I'm really passionate about sustainable development and was really hoping I would find some interesting food for thought in this book, but there's little meat on the bone, and mainly clichè for anyone who's not a complete novice to environmental and social flaws pervading the world we live in.Sadly, a waste of money.

The media could not be loaded.  I found the book presented a number of refreshing ideas which has made me more reflective about how to align the Economy, Society and the Ecology. With the population growth, shift to city living and a better understanding of the environment impact of our current life styles, the 'externalities' mentioned in the old economic model have now become front and centre. If you're looking to challenge your thinking, this is the right book for you.

At its worst, economics is a highly mathematical undertaking that is completely useless for understanding anything about the real world. Rather than explain inflation or international trade, you get utility functions, aggregate supply and demand curves that were supposed to wind up in some incomprehensible equilibrium, so obscure and bound up in such highly abstract assumptions that only a mathematician could understand it all and that utterly lacked any real-world relevance.For all of these reasons, I found Doughnut Economics both fascinating and useful. Raworth challenges academic "economic science" and offers a number of new notions that I hope will fundamentally re-shape the field. In addition, the book is lucidly written, which stands in stark contrast to the abstruse crap that so many economists churn out, where they twist logic into bizarre configurations and examples. It is practical, based on common sense notions, and relatively easy to understand. Raworth offers 7 "ways to think".First, we need to change the goal from one of unending "growth" of GDP to an equilibrium state inside the doughnut shape: in the hole, social needs are neglected; outside the edge, ecological concerns are violated. The doughnut encompasses a number of factors in dynamic balance, including social equity, work and income, global warming, resource depletion, etc.Second, instead of a hermetically sealed engine that flows between business and households in an unending circle, which neglects the bigger picture, we need to view the economy as embedded in both an evolving society and the larger ecosystem.Third, we must concentrate not on a single, abstract, selfish individual maximizing his/her well being in consumption of goods, but on socially adaptive communities of individuals who must work together for many other intangible values.Fourth, we need to integrate a systems approach, replacing the artificial calculation of an abstract equilibrium state, i.e. feedback loops of factors offer a more realistic image and concept of the economy than the simple assignment of an optimal overall price. Needs change and act upon each other dynamically, there is no "Pareto optimality".Fifth, the economic system should be designed to distribute resources fairly; inequality, in her view, is a failure of the system, not its inevitable outcome. This introduces a strong, legitimate role for public policy and activist government rather than some assumption that the "market" will achieve fairness or efficiency.Sixth, taking sustainability into account, the system can be set up to regenerate itself rather than simply use natural resources as inputs.Seventh, we have to give up the notion that GDP growth is the most important measure of how well the economy functions. Not only is perpetual growth a physical impossibility - indeed we are reaching the limits of capitalist growth rates at the levels we knew from 1870 to 1970, the golden age - but it diverts attention from more pressing tasks.Raworth gets into lots of technical detail. I could not do justice to her model in this description, indeed I will have to go back and re-read the book a few more times before I fully grasp it myself. Whatever, this is a marvelously stimulating intellectual journey that is also of vital importance.I do have a criticism of the tone of the book. Some of it reads like a TED talk, a formula that bores me to tears. The examples given are also too brief for my taste and need to be expanded upon in much great detail. Finally, there is a bit of zaniness in it that bothered me on occasion. For example, I would rather call it a torus than a doughnut, as I believe the associations with that are more serious. Perhaps it's nitpicking.Recommended with enthusiasm.