Cities need to be designed along these as do companies. Even an individual household could sit down and write, if we want to live in the doughnut, what is our purpose? What do we think is a thriving life for us as a family? And what are the networks? Where do we buy electricity? where do we save our money in a bank? How do we do our shopping? What communities are we part of? Do we to the community aty at all? Are we part of the commons? How did we govern ourselves as a family?"
When Kate Raworth began studying economics, she was disappointed that the mainstream version of the discipline didn’t fully address many of the world issues that she wanted to tackle, such as human rights and environmental destruction. She left the field, but was inspired to jump back in after the financial crisis of 2008, when she saw an opportunity to introduce fresh perspectives. She sat down and drew a chart in the shape of a doughnut, which provided a way to think about our economic system while accounting for the impact to the world around us, as well as for humans’ baseline needs. Kate’s framing can teach us a lot about how to transform the economic model of the technology industry, helping us move from a system that values addicted, narcissistic, polarized humans to one that values healthy, loving and collaborative relationships. Her book, “Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist,” gives us a guide for transitioning from a 20th-century paradigm to an evolved 21st-century one that will address our existential-scale problems.