The Negative-Sum Economy
To be wealthy is to have the things you need and want, the things that support your well-being and enable you to do what you like.
economics
Six Choice Metaphors to Unfold Economics
Human ecology opens us beyond a reductive view. We are part of understanding; our regard is from ‘inside,’ not as ‘outside’ observers.
Ruminations on Resilience
This is the main notion, and the importance, of resilience. The whole life process is one of ongoing disequilibrium movement to which we must adapt to survive.
Beyond the green frog-skin world
How can a civilization last, when its governing force is something so fleeting and artificial as money?
Economics and the environment
If I’m asked about the role economics plays in the environment and sustainability, my answer would be ‘what kind of economics are you talking about’?
The Focus is ‘Enough’ Rather Than ‘More’
Rob Dietz: Steady-state economics is a sustainable alternative to mainstream or neoclassical economics, which assumes perpetual growth of production and consumption. Such an economy keeps material and energy use within ecological limits, and the unsustainable (and unrealistic) goal of continuously increasing income and consumption is replaced by the goal of improving quality of life for all. In short, the focus is enough rather than more.
What Might We Learn from COVID-19?
We make decisions, not on known outcomes but on imagined projections standing on theories of how things work. These projections have an ethical range called the ‘planning horizon.’ The better we understand the world the broader the reach of our anticipations. Conscience serves to measure how well we encompass social effects.
Economists and climate change: Building castles in the sky
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said that “the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” Unfortunately, when some economists turn their sights on the economics of climate change, their unreliable methods imperil not just the economic life of humankind but its very existence.
Small Farms don’t Produce Most the of the Worlds’ Food – But they Could Produce All
The key message is that the potential of small farms for global food production is determined by economic conditions rather than biological, ecological or agronomic limitations.
The lost chances of the Greens, parts II and III
Interview with the late Rhoda Gilman, one of the early leaders of the Green movement. She talks about the origins of the Greens and Adam Smith’s vision of capitalism.
“If we were living in Adam Smith’s world, we wouldn’t be doing badly at all; the Greens would be right at home.”
On Faiths, Keeping Them and Losing Them…
Although we may not think that we do, we all live with faiths – ideas that we take for granted that appear so obvious that we do not feel a need to re-examine them – ideas that we do not usually want to re-examine.
An Introduction to Political Economy
So economics isn’t a science. It also wasn’t founded by Adam Smith. What Adam Smith founded, rather, was political economy. You won’t hear much about that field of study these days, and that’s not an accident. Political economy, as the name indicates, explores the relations between wealth and power in a society.