Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, which I gobbled up last week, was tentatively in my top five economics pastries before I bit down on Chapter 7. Now it’s “merely” in the baker’s dozen—top ten even—along with classics such as Small is Beautiful, the Diseconomics of Growth, and more than one Herman Daly title on the pantry shelf.[i] I know you’re hungry for the answer to what grated my teeth at Chapter 7,
To most people, the idea of a steady state economy is misunderstood at best and completely unknown at worst. Outside of economic, environmental, and academic circles, steady staters are hard to come by. The idea of a steady state economy is not yet mainstream and is shied away from in the media, general politics, education, and culture. Economic growth has been sold to generations as the remedy to all our ailments.
By Haydn Washington
The True Meaning of Ecological Economics
Ecological economics has a problem: Pluralism is out of control, to the extent that “ecological economics” is starting to mean different methods, approaches, and values to different people. We need to know precisely what we mean by “ecological economics,” and to settle upon an ethical framework thereof.
The original thinkers in ecological economics, such as Herman Daly, were clear that ecological economics was an economics that operated within ecological limits.