The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    book rec: Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth

    By AmericanDreamer on Tue, 12/19/2017 - 11:13am |

    The quirkily-titled Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, was written by a heterodox British economist, Kate Raworth.  I'm giving it as a gift and otherwise promoting it to folks in my circles.  It's the best big picture book about economics I've read, taking the place of Robert Kuttner's Everything For Sale (the latter on the strengths and limitations of markets), in part because it is about so much more than this critical discipline, which is overdue to be reinvented for the 21st century.  This book has more helpful thoughts on that large topic than anything I've come across.      

    Comments

    Know when I see you recommend a book that even if I can't find the time to read it, I should watch for mention of it, it's going to be influential. So thanks for taking the time to tell us.

    Certainly can't agree enough with overdue to be reinvented for the 21st century, so maybe this is the one I make time to read...


    by artappraiser on Wed, 12/20/2017 - 9:47am

    like this review and sounds right up my alley on the "quit with your damn traditional box, let's go outside the box". Especially like this on the hamster wheel we're all on with GDP and "quality of life":

    “Today,” she writes, “we have economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive; what we need are economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow.”


    by artappraiser on Wed, 12/20/2017 - 10:13am

    Yes, she urges agnosticism on the matter of economic growth (at least as we conceive and measure it today).  She acknowledges an obvious conundrum:  "No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy.  And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one."

       

     

     


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 12/20/2017 - 3:40pm

    Thank you for your (too) kind words.  I'd been away from dagblog for quite some time and learned to my dismay only on revisiting the site a few weeks ago that you had lost your husband.  I'm very sorry.  I hope you are doing well, or as well as could be expected, in the aftermath.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 12/20/2017 - 3:43pm