The dominant model – “rational economic man”, self-interested, isolated, calculating – says more about the nature of economists than it does about other humans.
It aspired to be a science of human behaviour: a science based on a deeply flawed portrait of humanity. Raworth points out that economics in the 20th century “lost the desire to articulate its goals”. Simon Kuznets, who standardised the measurement of growth, warned: “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.” Economic growth, he pointed out, measured only annual flow, rather than stocks of wealth and their distribution. In Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Kate Raworth of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute reminds us that economic growth was not, at first, intended to signify wellbeing. This is what the most inspiring book published so far this year has done. We cannot use the models that caused our crises to solve them. We cannot hope to address our predicament without a new worldview. If this destroys our prosperity and the wonders that surround us, who cares? You can see the effects in a leaked memo from the UK’s Foreign Office: “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts … work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.” All that counts is the rate at which we turn natural wealth into cash.
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