A mandala for our times

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth is the most important and inspiring new book that I have read this year. It delivers an informed and devastating critique of mainstream economic theory, and advocates a plethora of remedial alternatives, many of which are already gaining traction.

The eponymous doughnut defines the “safe and just space” between the basics of life (from the twelve UN 2015 Sustainable Development Goals) and the ecological ceiling comprising nine planetary boundaries (Rockström, J. et al. (2009) ‛A Safe Operating Space for Humanity.’ Nature, 461(7263): 472-475.). I had used the latter, which is curiously absent from Raworth’s bibliography, in my 2009 Diploma Thesis, Jungian Ecopsychology: Depth Psychology Meets Deep Ecology in the Anima Mundi and the Arc of Life.

Raworth radically redefines the goal of economics from (endless?) GDP growth to getting, and then staying, within the doughnut. Whether conscious or not, her choice of a circular image conveys wholeness and balance, and from a Jungian perspective is an archetypal symbol of the Self—the totality and ordering principle of the psyche. It will certainly appear, with permission, in my book. Meanwhile, here’s a really great animation: