mducks's review against another edition
4.0
Basic guide to social over business economics. Raworth makes the odd statement that she read economics in the hope that it would get better, I belong to the school of regarding economists are pseudo scientists of not outright quacks. Economics is a guessing game at best and generally relies upon those involved all following the same rules. There is not set principle that works but if everyone does the same thing, it gives the lie of working, much as a traffic system gives the lie that mass commuting works.
Fun read and raises the right sort of questions for our day, more pertinent now than when it was written because our financial structures must change but it does not offer solutions, that is up to us
Fun read and raises the right sort of questions for our day, more pertinent now than when it was written because our financial structures must change but it does not offer solutions, that is up to us
nahiyan's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
brettpet's review against another edition
Didn't really mesh with this book. So many pages are taken up by Raworth providing detailed background on economic principles/history so it ends up feeling like the radical "Doughnut Economics" thinking is relegated to the later chapters (as well as making the book unnecessarily dense to read). I wanted more case studies in support of Raworth's ideas--she would often drop a really interesting example randomly in a paragraph without expanding on it. Due to her background working in developing countries, I wanted to learn more about her specific experiences that could fall within the "doughnut".
londonchimpden's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
shoulberg's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
onesime's review against another edition
5.0
Doughnut Economics, both the book and the theory (for what it's worth), are as good as they sound. Before getting into the details, I should point out that Raworth is an erudite economist and an engaging author, lacing this potentially dry subject with captivating comparisons and amusing analogies.
This book very clearly wears its heart on its sleeve: the doughnut is the point of focus throughout. The doughnut is the idea that there is a social floor and an ecological roof that should be guiding our actions. The social floor is an acknowledgement of the fact that human thriving entails certain minimal standards such as clean drinking water, a functioning healthcare system, political voice and access to the global knowledge pool, to name a few. That's the inner circle of the doughnut. The outer circle of the donut - the limits to growth, so to speak - is given by the maximum amount of pressure we can exert on the environment while maintaining habitable conditions. Basically, the book describes how we have one foot kicking through a moldy floorboard while punching our hands through the ceiling.
Unlike some other books on these issues (I'm looking at you, *Uninhabitable Earth*), Raworth finds an optimistic tone by consistently - but not annoyingly - pointing to the fact that the next generation of policy makers still has an opportunity to prevent the worst futures from happening. She draws on a wide range of examples from anthropology, business, policy and invention to demonstrate that there is actual cause for hope, since new ideas with tangibly positive results are being tested. So, the book makes clear that we are very much on the path to driving this planet into a brick wall, but also offers some approaches as to how we might be able to drive around it.
In terms of economic content, Raworth argues that many of the touchstones of the economic discipline - the supply-demand diagram, homo economicus, the Kuznets curve describing the relationship of growth and inequality, the ever rising GDP curve - are actually just models that have far outgrown their original purpose, and she does so convincingly. While giving the reader a tour of the history of economic thought, she shows how many of the economic ideas that are taken as gospel were developed as tools for thinking through economic problems, rather than as "accurate" (whatever that means) descriptions of the world. In each chapter she picks one of these key ideas, contextualizes it, offers different perspectives on the problem each idea was intended to address and outlines new ways of thinking about these problems.
I guess my one problem with the book is that it often only scratches the surface of any given topic, choosing a survey approach rather than an in-depth discussion. At the same time, it's hard to count that as a fault, considering that its subtitle firmly roots it in the overview/brainfodder corner of the bookstore. So, for anyone wanting to learn more about economics (as a mode of interaction *and* as discipline), our planet and how the two interact in policy choices, this book is a great start.
This book very clearly wears its heart on its sleeve: the doughnut is the point of focus throughout. The doughnut is the idea that there is a social floor and an ecological roof that should be guiding our actions. The social floor is an acknowledgement of the fact that human thriving entails certain minimal standards such as clean drinking water, a functioning healthcare system, political voice and access to the global knowledge pool, to name a few. That's the inner circle of the doughnut. The outer circle of the donut - the limits to growth, so to speak - is given by the maximum amount of pressure we can exert on the environment while maintaining habitable conditions. Basically, the book describes how we have one foot kicking through a moldy floorboard while punching our hands through the ceiling.
Unlike some other books on these issues (I'm looking at you, *Uninhabitable Earth*), Raworth finds an optimistic tone by consistently - but not annoyingly - pointing to the fact that the next generation of policy makers still has an opportunity to prevent the worst futures from happening. She draws on a wide range of examples from anthropology, business, policy and invention to demonstrate that there is actual cause for hope, since new ideas with tangibly positive results are being tested. So, the book makes clear that we are very much on the path to driving this planet into a brick wall, but also offers some approaches as to how we might be able to drive around it.
In terms of economic content, Raworth argues that many of the touchstones of the economic discipline - the supply-demand diagram, homo economicus, the Kuznets curve describing the relationship of growth and inequality, the ever rising GDP curve - are actually just models that have far outgrown their original purpose, and she does so convincingly. While giving the reader a tour of the history of economic thought, she shows how many of the economic ideas that are taken as gospel were developed as tools for thinking through economic problems, rather than as "accurate" (whatever that means) descriptions of the world. In each chapter she picks one of these key ideas, contextualizes it, offers different perspectives on the problem each idea was intended to address and outlines new ways of thinking about these problems.
I guess my one problem with the book is that it often only scratches the surface of any given topic, choosing a survey approach rather than an in-depth discussion. At the same time, it's hard to count that as a fault, considering that its subtitle firmly roots it in the overview/brainfodder corner of the bookstore. So, for anyone wanting to learn more about economics (as a mode of interaction *and* as discipline), our planet and how the two interact in policy choices, this book is a great start.
mellatiku's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5