Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth
This book questions the basic assumptions of current economic theory, and proposes a new framework to develop a new economic system. It covers many of the troubling issues that I have seen with established economics, for instance the assumption that growth must continue indefinitely. Nothing in nature grows indefinitely, with the possible exception of a black hole. I often struggled with this when working in industry where the goal was always to grow 10% every year. When a company is small this may be possible, but for a market leader there has to be a limit to growth. Imagine if your height increased by 10% every year. In seven years you would be twice as tall as you are now, and every seven years your height would continue to double. Clearly this is not how the world works.
Raworth goes on to describe a different kind of economy which is very different to the one we have today, where we live in balance between everyone having their basic needs met and not exceeding the capacity of the planet to support human activity. This would require radical change in our view of what constitutes progress and success. It would definitely take us time to get there, if we can achieve it at all.
One thing is clear – if we continue under the current economic assumptions, it is very likely we will end up with a bad outcome. Whether we are able to change the goals and assumptions remains to be seen.