We are the economy and we can change it
written as a guest entry by Amanda Janoo
Image credits: Markus Spiske via Unsplash
I’m from a small rural town in Vermont, with one paved road and general store. I was raised in a bicultural household and, somewhere between my Hindu grandmother and Catholic grandfather, I developed a belief early on that the purpose of life is to be happy and help others and you can’t do one without the other.
Meaning that I can’t really be happy if I don’t feel like I’m positively contributing something to the world. Equally, I can’t really be helpful unless I am happy.
This philosophy is what guided me to economics, because I saw the work as a complex Venn diagram with interconnected social, political, ecological and spiritual issues and somewhere towards the centres at the economy. If we could change this system, it would ripple out and improve all other areas of life.
What I found in mainstream economics was a lot of discussion of how the economy should work according to the laws of “the market” and little discussion of how we can actually transform it.
I’ve spent most of my career as an economic policy expert and I believe that one of the greatest tricks played on humanity has been to present the economy as something boring and abstract, that happens “out there”, beyond our control.
The reality is, we are the economy and we’ve got the power to change it.
The economy is just a word we use to describe the way we produce and provide for one another. It’s a system that harnesses our creativity and facilitates exchange between people and planet to improve our quality of life.
But we developed a strange assumption that the economy is driven by the worst part of us – that when it comes to producing and providing for one another, we’re inherently rational, individualistic and selfish and somehow that’s a good thing.
As a result, we designed policies and built institutions to encourage and reward this, which is why studies show that nearly a quarter of Fortune 500 chief executives exhibit psychopathic traits. They are the perfect “economic man”, devoid of compassion, empathy and consideration for the wellbeing of others.
We have come to glorify psychopathic behaviour because we have built a narrative that taking as much as we can for ourselves will somehow leave everyone better off. The issue, of course, is that it’s not working out that way.
Not only is our ecosystem collapsing and our very survival at stake but this system is making us miserable, with loneliness, anxiety and depression sweeping the globe. In countries like mine, the majority of people find no meaning in their work and believe they have a job that is either contributing nothing to the world or actively making it worse off.
We’ve now developed an economic system where there is almost a perfect inverse relationship between your salary and your societal contribution – hedge fund managers make millions while the workers we have deemed to be the most “essential” receive poverty wages.
For decades we’ve evaluated our progress and development by our level of economic growth, so we developed policies to encourage and reward the large investors, corporations and entrepreneurs who are efficient at generating wealth and profits. But people are now recognising we’ve confused means and ends for too long. What’s the point of living in the richest era in history if our planet is on fire and we all have to stand two metres apart?
In New Zealand, the top 311 families are worth $85 billion combined.
That is more than the combined wealth of the bottom 2.5 million New Zealanders. These top 311 pay an effective tax rate of half the average New Zealander.
On the eve of an election, we must think about the economy we want to build together. This is about recognising that people and planet are not here to serve the economy; it is here to serve us.
This is not about figuring out how to make things more efficiently, it’s about building a system of reciprocal exchange that encourages and rewards the best, rather then the worst parts of us. Where our caregivers, educators, artists and stewards of the earth are valued for the happiness and wellbeing they bring.
We can build and economy that harnesses our innate creativity and energises towards healing and revitalising our natural world through ecosystem restoration, circular economy, regenerative agriculture and many more of the incredible solutions that politicians must take up and action in the next critical term of government here in Aotearoa.
The solutions are out there, and the public will is strong. I believe that a different economic system is not only possible, but already underway.
Amanda Janoo is the International Economics Lead for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEALL) https://weall.org/hub/newzealand
This opinion piece was originally published in the NZ Herald, 28 August, 2023. Reproduced here with permission.
