Doughnut Economics: The must-read book that redefines economics for a world in crisis

This century we need some pretty insightful managers to guide our planetary household, and ones who are ready to pay attention to the needs of all of its inhabitants.

‘mission zero’:

mainstream economic theory is obsessed with the productivity of waged labour while skipping right over the unpaid work that makes it all possible,

Political economy ‘does not treat the whole of man’s nature … nor the whole conduct of man in society’, he argued in 1844. ‘It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth.’

when the short-term interests of that decision-making elite diverge from the long-term interests of society as a whole it is, he warns, ‘a blueprint for trouble’.

Simply thinking like a consumer, it seems, triggers self-regarding behaviour, and divides rather than unites groups who are facing a common scarcity.

Bringing money into the mix, it seems, can significantly alter our regard for the living world.

The portrait we paint of ourselves clearly shapes who we become.

In hospitals and clinics worldwide, patients and doctors have been recast as customers and service-providers. In fields and forests on every continent, economists are calculating the monetary value of ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem services’, ranging from the economic worth of the world’s wetlands (said to be $3.4 billion per year) to the global