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Upstream

Doughnut Economics with Kate Raworth

Upstream

Upstream

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.92.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When you think about economics, what images come to mind? Maybe a supply and demand graph? Or a blackboard with complex equations scrawled across it? These images are based on a 19th century view of economics, one that is outdated and even dangerous, as we're beginning to see more and more. In this Upstream Conversation, we explore why the economy should look more like a doughnut. In her new book, Doughnut Economics, renegade economist Kate Raworth explains why it's time to explore new images that tell different stories about the economy. Kate walks us through the many aspects of her proposal for a new picture of economics, while discrediting some of the old assumptions and exploring new solutions. Our conversation moves readily from economic history to complexity, from system design to wealth inequality, and from poverty to…doughnuts. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I think that's probably been the most pernicious result of this desire to be like physics to look for the laws of motion as if the economy the way the world works was driven by these laws that we needed to discover.

0:32.0

And I think that's really led us astray over the last

0:36.2

100 years and has given rise to a very strong neoliberal story that let the market do its work market forces again the

0:45.8

language of mechanics market forces will bring the economy into its right

0:50.6

position don't get in their way, they will sort things out.

0:54.0

You are listening to an upstream conversation with Kate Rayworth, author of the book titled

0:59.4

Donut Economics Seven Ways to Think like a 21st century economist.

1:05.0

Kate and I met up for this interview in an apartment in London.

1:09.0

Welcome Kate.

1:13.6

Thank you.

1:14.3

Let's start with a little bit about your background and how you came to do the work that you do.

1:18.8

Okay, so when I was a teenager, I was a teenager at the 1980s and the TV news was the way I came to see the world.

1:27.8

So I saw the Exxon Valdez spewing its contents out into Alaska's pristine waters. I saw the Ethiopian

1:36.3

famine, a whole opening up in the ozone layer. And as I think those images from the TV screen are the reason why when I came to the end of school,

1:48.2

I wanted to work for say Oxfam or Greenpeace.

1:51.8

I wanted to tackle the social environmental issues that I saw

1:56.1

challenging the world.

1:57.6

And I believe that if I was going to do that well, I needed economics because it was the mother tongue of public policy it was the language of influence

2:05.0

so I thought if I learned the toolkit of economics I can apply it to these issues and try and make

2:09.6

the world a better place very heartfelt naive, that was where I was coming from.

2:14.8

And so I went to university, studied economics,

2:19.2

but when I got there, the issues that I was studying the theories we were taught really frustrated me because

...

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