Is Our Idea of Economic Success Completely Broken? (Your Radical Questions with Kate Raworth)
6/15/202618 min
Kate Raworth believes that mainstream economists have got it wrong for decades. For her, reducing everything to a simple measure of gross domestic product and increasing that number every year is a huge mistake that is harming both people and planet.
In 2017 she proposed a radical alternative in a book called ‘Doughnut Economics’. It proposes a new economic model that priortises social and environmental needs instead of how much we produce and consume.
Many of you asked us to invite her on the podcast, and you've also sent in your questions - so we put them to her.
We get Kate’s view on whether its possible to build long term consensus for her approach at a time when people want short term solutions and whether there is a better metric to measure economic success. We also hear her assessment of universal basic income, and a former Radical guest challenges Kate’s fundamental beliefs on economic growth.
GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Monday and Thursday. Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Oscar Pearson and Julian Paszkiewicz. Digital production was by Daniel Raza. Technical production was by Mike Regaard. The series producer is Rufus Gray The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAmol Rajan· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Your Radical Questions. This is where I put your magnificent questions to one of our magnificent guests. It's a chance to really engage very directly with the brilliant, radical, thought-provoking, brave people that we have on this podcast to ask them about their ideas for the future. And this week, as you may know by now, 'cause you heard Thursday's fantastic episode, I'm so thrilled to be joined by Kate Raworth, who has fundamentally altered how we think about economics. She wrote a book in 2017 called Doughnut Economics, huge bestseller. It's one of those books that other economists use as a kind of starting point for their own, uh, philosophy and worldview. Kate thinks that we should, rather than have this relentless focus on growth, we need to...
Kate Raworth· Guest0:49
Meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.
Amol Rajan· Host0:52
Fabulous. Uh, and her big radical idea is that we should have an economic model which puts ecological and social needs first, things like human rights, instead of prioritizing things like GDP per capita at all costs. Anyway, it's all in Thursday's episode. It was a good episode, wasn't it? It was great.
Kate Raworth· Guest1:07
Yeah, I loved it.
Amol Rajan· Host1:07
It was absolutely fantastic, and we've had lots of questions. Thank you as ever to all of you who have sent in questions. We had rather a lot because Kate is a very, very, very, very popular guest. Uh, as I mentioned on Thursday's episode, she is the most requested guest that we've had on Rad- It's 'cause of my sister. No, it's not. It's 'cause of you. It's amazing. [laughs] [laughs] Oh, yeah, I forgot I asked about that. Um, anyway, uh, here we go. Lots of questions. We're gonna rattle through as many as we can.
Kate Raworth· Guest1:29
Okay.
Amol Rajan· Host1:29
First question,