She starts by talking about how obsessed we are with growth.
And it’s true , we treat economic growth like it’s the only sign of progress.
But think about growth in real life. Kids growing? Cute. Plants growing?
Beautiful. But if a doctor tells you that you have a “growth,” that
suddenly means something very different. Endless growth inside a body is
dangerous. So why do we expect our economies to grow endlessly without
consequences?
For the last 150 years, especially in Western countries,
we’ve behaved like the economy is stuck in Peter Pan mode always wanting to
grow, never wanting to grow up. And now that mindset is crashing into reality:
climate disasters, resource depletion, pollution, inequality… the usual list of
things we “worry about someday,” but are already happening now.
That’s where Raworth’s doughnut idea comes in. Yes, a
literal doughnut. And honestly, it’s one of the smartest metaphors I’ve ever
heard for explaining what a healthy economy should look like.
Imagine a doughnut with a hole in the middle. The hole
represents people who don’t have enough to meet basic needs , no proper food,
housing, healthcare, education, energy, or voice in society. A good economy
should pull people out of that hole so no one is struggling just to
survive.
Then you have the outer ring of the doughnut. That’s the
boundary of the planet , the ecological limit. If we push beyond that ring, we
start wrecking the environment: too much carbon, too much mining, too many
forests destroyed, too much land used up. Basically, everything that leads to
climate change and ecosystem collapse. A healthy economy should avoid crossing
that line too.
So the real “sweet spot” is the doughnut itself , the space
where people have enough to live well without damaging the planet. And
honestly, that sounds way more reasonable than “infinite growth forever.”
What’s wild is that the man who created GDP, Simon Kuznets,
literally warned governments not to confuse it with national welfare. He said
GDP doesn’t capture unpaid work, community value, or environmental destruction.
But it was convenient, so politicians grabbed it and never let go. And now we
act like GDP is everything, even though it measures only a small slice of
reality.
The truth is, a healthy economy isn’t an upward-sloping line
we worship. It’s balance. Just like our bodies need enough food ,but not too
much, and enough sleep , but not too little, our economies also need to stay
within healthy limits. They should help people thrive and respect the
planet’s boundaries.
For low-income countries, growth still matters, because they need better hospitals, education, transport, and opportunities. But richer countries can’t just keep consuming more and more and pretend it’s progress. They need to redesign their economies to fit inside that doughnut.
At the end of the day, Raworth’s idea feels like a reality
check. It asks the questions GDP never can: Are people okay? Is the planet
okay? Because if either one collapses, the economy collapses too.
So now, when I hear “The economy grew 6% this quarter,” I
don’t get impressed automatically. I feel like asking the real question:
Growth is
cool… but are we inside the doughnut or not?
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