Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

by Kate Raworth

The psychotherapist Sue Gerhardt would certainly agree. ‘Although we have relative material abundance, we do not in fact have emotional abundance,’ she writes in her book, The Selfish Society. ‘Many people are deprived of what really matters.’73 There are many views on what really matters to us in life – from using our talents and helping others, to standing up for what we believe in. Drawing on a wide array of psychological research, the New Economics Foundation has distilled the findings down to five simple acts that are proven to promote well-being: connecting to the people around us, being active in our bodies, taking notice of the world, learning new skills, and giving to others.74 Perhaps these are first steps towards the kind of moral and social progress that Mill was imagining as he looked forward to a time when people who were no longer engrossed in the art of getting on would aspire instead to the art of living.