Thread by @davidrvetter

On Monday, we [the MSEE cohort at @TheSmithSchool, @UniofOxford] met visionary systems thinker @KateRaworth and spoke with her about reimagining what and who the economy is for. Yet you won't hear her thesis in a mainstream economics lecture. 🧵 1/16

In her 2017 book #DoughnutEconomics, Raworth showed that mainstream economic thinking is based on a set of flimsy conceits and assumptions, in particular about GDP growth. These conceits have helped enable and accelerate global ecological and climate breakdown. 2/

Raworth notes that nowhere do the mainstream neoclassical or neoliberal economic thinkers include *the planet we live on* in their calculations. Their focus is fixed almost solely on growth. At any and all costs, the line must go up - forever. 3/

It turns out, however, that the planet we all depend on for our survival has physical limits. Raworth suggests that -just maybe- we ought to include in our economic equations the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants. And not simply "line go up". 4/ science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

If you want to learn more about this, you need to check out the book or visit doughnuteconomics.org. But at the end of the talk, Raworth and others brought up something that hit home hard ... 5/

They revealed that, in spite of the #doughnut model being taken up by multiple cities and municipalities around the globe - from Melbourne to Amsterdam - this and other alternative econ theses *aren't even mentioned* in many, perhaps most, mainstream econ classes. 6/

One student said that they recently completed a (highly prestigious) economics and development degree in which the environment - indeed the Earth - *wasn't even mentioned*. Other economics students concurred: the planet and its physical boundaries didn't enter the discussion. 7/

This means economics students are being indoctrinated with something akin to a defunct religious ideology. One that discounts the planetary system(s) on which we all depend. Such students make broadly the same calculations that have been around since the time of Kuznets. 8/

Much like the internal combustion engine, which has remained largely the same since the Ford Model T, it's an idea that must be retired, yet persists. And while its functional utility might have got us here, "here" is turning out to not be such a great place. 9/

Economics students are still trained to view themselves as Rational Economic Man, and never invited to question the quasi-religious worldview that the 20th century's men in suits imposed upon their forbears in stuffy classrooms, devoid of planetary context. 10/

If you're taught to believe that everyone is self-serving and driven only by base instincts, you will likely see *and create* a world that only rewards selfishness. Our political leaders, many of whom took PPE classes at top institutions, epitomize this indoctrination. 11/

Again, these students, some of whom go on to become powerful figures, aren't even offered alternatives to accepted doctrine. Little wonder that studies suggest students of economics are more selfish than others. 12/
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/give-a…

So what will it take to force the Old Boys' Priesthood of Neoclassical Economics to learn a new tune? As we concluded on Monday, they're unlikely to reject the thesis that got them a space atop their ivory tower. 13/

Perhaps all we can do is wait. Perhaps, to paraphrase Max Planck, economics progresses one funeral at a time. But, as UNEP notes, we don't have much time. 14/

Just perhaps, if we stopped listening to the 20th century's great white patriarchs, eyes forever facing down, and paid more attention to reality-based systems thinkers like Mariana Mazzucato, Amartya Sen, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Herman Daly, 15/

Dana Meadows, Janine Benyus, Ha-Joon Chang, @StephanieKelton and @JKSteinberger, we might perceive a way to live equitably within the boundaries of our little blue planet. After all - if the rule we followed led us to this, of what use was the rule?
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*I feel like I should say the names above are a tiny fraction of a sliver of a morsel of the huge number of thinkers and writers I admire who are doing incredible work on this most wicked of problems. It's not meant to be exhaustive!