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Audio Interview

Why economic growth is not the goal

Published on July 5, 2020   25 min

Other Talks in the Playlist: Interviews with business leaders and scholars

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Interviewer: I'm Neil Bradman and today I'm speaking to Kate Raworth, the author of the book, "Doughnut Economics, Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist". The assumption is that people listening to this interview have read the book. This is an interview about the implications of the book, not a substitute for reading the book. Kate, thank you for spending the time with us today. Ms. Raworth: All my pleasure. Interviewer: Lets me go straight into my principal interest which is having established, as you argue, that seeking growth should not be forever the objective. How do we make this happen? How do we, in a liberal democracy arrive at a situation whereby individuals will elect a government on the basis that the voters have enough. Ms. Raworth: Well, I want to come back to the assumption that we are in a liberal democracy driven by voters. I think there's a lot of corporate influence, which means this isn't a 'one vote, one person' situation. I think there's corporate influence that usually shapes that situation. But let's come back to how do we get away from the focus on growth. The first thing you do is don't focus on getting away from growth, what you do is focused on what you are for. I'm very much influenced by a quote I wrote in the book from Buckminster Fuller, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." From that, I would say that sometimes the best form of protest is to propose something new.