Economics
by Kate Raworth
What is an economy for?
For decades, success meant a rising GDP. Kate Raworth, an economist who spent years at Oxfam, thinks growth was the wrong goal all along. She asks what economics would look like if it started from what people and the planet actually need.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Picture two rings. The inner ring is the social foundation, the minimum no one should fall below, such as food, water, housing and a political voice. The outer ring is the ecological ceiling, limits like a stable climate and healthy oceans. The goal is the dough in between.
Textbooks draw the economy as money flowing in a loop between households and firms. Raworth redraws it inside society, which sits inside the living world, powered by the sun. In her picture, unpaid care at home and shared resources like the commons count as much as markets and the state.
The textbook's rational economic man stands alone, calculating, out for himself. Raworth replaces him with social, adaptable humans who cooperate, copy each other and change with their surroundings. The picture economists paint of people, she argues, shapes how people come to behave.
Most industry runs in one direction, which Raworth sums up as take, make, use, lose. Waiting for growth to clean up the mess afterwards hasn't worked, she argues. Design products and cities so materials keep coming back into use instead.
The doughnut
Swap GDP growth for a better goal. Meet everyone's needs without pushing the planet past its limits.
The big picture
The economy sits inside society and nature. It does not run on its own.
Human nature
Real people are social and care about fairness, far from the selfish 'rational economic man' of textbooks.
Systems
The economy keeps changing like a living system. It rarely settles into a neat balance.
Fair by design
Build fairness into how the economy works from the start, instead of hoping growth will spread it later.
A story from the book
In 1960 the economist W. W. Rostow described economies taking off into growth and flying on to an age of high mass consumption. Raworth points out that his flight plan never said where the plane lands. Rich economies, she argues, need to learn to thrive whether or not they grow.
One thing to try
Pick something you throw away every week, like a coffee cup or a food tray. Find out where it goes after the bin. Then find one way to make it come back into use, such as a refill or a return scheme.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Doughnut Economics comes with a Name That Idea round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhat is an economy for? For decades, success meant a rising GDP. Kate Raworth, an economist who spent years at Oxfam, thinks growth was the wrong goal all along. She asks what economics would look like if it started from what people and the planet actually need.
Draw the doughnut; The embedded economy; Swap out economic man; Regenerative by design.
Pick something you throw away every week, like a coffee cup or a food tray. Find out where it goes after the bin. Then find one way to make it come back into use, such as a refill or a return scheme.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Doughnut Economics in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Name That Idea round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
