Diane Coyle is my guest on the latest edition of Development Drums, talking about her book The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters.
Diane Coyle was recently described as one of the UK’s most eminent public intellectuals. She is Vice Chair of the BBC Trust, a member of the Migration Advisory Committee, she runs Enlightenment Economics, an economics consulting firm specializing in technology and globalization, and she has written a number of books on economics, including The Soulful Science, Sex, Drugs and Economics, and The Weightless World.
In The Economics of Enough, which is now out in paperback, she argues that all these crises have at their heart a failure to take proper account of the future in the way we run our economy, and a departure from the basic values which should guide our economy and society. In this edition of Development Drums, Diane sets out why she thinks these crises are serious and long-lasting, and the obstacles we face in dealing with them.
The podcast finishes with a discussion of her Manifesto of Enough – her key proposals to get started on the challenges.
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4 responses to “The Economics of Enough [Development Drums]”
Owen,
I loved this discussion, and found many of D Coyle’s observations thought-provoking.
Her observation that many of the problems wealthy nations are facing are often generated or at least exacerbated because of short-termism and excess influence on policy by powerful, incumbent stakeholders resonated with me. It strikes me that these factors may also be unhelpfully influencing aid policy, aid management, aid implementation…at least in the area of health development assistance, where the global community has shifted ever more toward a humanitarian model (mass fish distribution) and away from a development (health system strengthening) model (help countries build their own capacities to fish).
And I fear the “results agenda” is only strengthening this focus (not that it has to, mind you, but perhaps the short-term horizons and stakeholder capture of policy also explain the ways we end up counting results?).
Anyhow, great great podcast.
I really enjoyed this podcast as well. Thank you for the insightful interview, it was refreshing.
[…] Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters. I listened to an interview with her on the Development Drums podcast, which I recommend. Also, just to drive home the point that development theory really has moved […]
[…] finished listening to the latest edition of the Development Drums podcast, where Owen Barder from the Centre for Global Development interviews Diane Coyle about her new book, The Economics of […]