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Emotional Economics

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The Future of Economics Uses the Science of Real-Life Social Networks. By Paul Ormerod Modern economic theory was first set out on a formal basis in the late 19th century.

The Future of Economics Uses the Science of Real-Life Social Networks

While there have been many developments since then, at heart the view in economics of how the world operates remains the same. Mainstream economic theory is essentially concerned with how decisions are made by individuals, what information is gathered and how it is used by decision-makers. The intellectual basis of most social and economic policy in the western world is provided by this conventional economic theory. A whole range of activities in state bureaucracies, such as forecasts, policy evaluation, cost–benefit analysis and the design of regulation, stem directly from mainstream economics. All scientific theories, even quantum physics, are approximations to reality.

In the early 21st century, just as in the late 19th, economics in general makes the assumption that individuals operate autonomously, isolated from the direct influences of others.

The Gift Economy

Social Capital. Behavioral Economics. Empathy. Occupy Wall St - The Revolution Is Love. The High Price of Materialism. All I Own: Swedish Students Photographed With All Their Possessions Show How to Live With less Sannah Kvist's All I Own photo collection inspires Anti-Consumerism – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World. Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed. Well I’m in the working world again.

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed

I’ve found myself a well-paying gig in the engineering industry, and life finally feels like it’s returning to normal after my nine months of traveling. Because I had been living quite a different lifestyle while I was away, this sudden transition to 9-to-5 existence has exposed something about it that I overlooked before. Since the moment I was offered the job, I’ve been markedly more careless with my money. Not stupid, just a little quick to pull out my wallet. As a small example, I’m buying expensive coffees again, even though they aren’t nearly as good as New Zealand’s exceptional flat whites, and I don’t get to savor the experience of drinking them on a sunny café patio. I’m not talking about big, extravagant purchases.

Max-Neef Model of Human-Scale Development. Kath Fisher: "Manfred Max-Neef is a Chilean economist who has worked for many years with the problem of development in the Third World, articulating the inappropriateness of conventional models of development, that have lead to increasing poverty, massive debt and ecological disaster for many Third World communities.

He works for the Centre for Development Alternatives in Chile, an organisation dedicated to the reorientation of development which stimulates local needs. It researches new tools, strategies and evaluative techniques to support such development, and Max-Neef's publication Human Scale Development: an Option for the Future (1987) outlines the results of the Centre’s researches and experiences Max-Neef and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy of human needs and a process by which communities can identify their "wealths" and "poverties" according to how these needs are satisfied. Graphic with 36 cell matrix at. Flourishing as a Goal of International Policy. The discipline of positive psychology studies what free people choose when they are not oppressed.

Flourishing as a Goal of International Policy

I call these desiderata the elements of “well-being,” and when an individual or nation has them in abundance I say it is “flourishing.” Governments continue to organize their politics and economics around the relief of suffering, and I cannot confidently predict that the planet’s future will be bright with nonoppressed peoples freely choosing the elements of well-being.

But if there is to be a “positive human future,” and not just a “nonnegative human future,” it is necessary to discover what the elements of well-being are and how to build them. Well-being has five measurable elements that count toward it: Positive Emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are aspects)Engagement (being in flow, being one with the music)Good RelationshipsMeaning and Purpose (belonging to and serving something you believe is bigger than you are)Accomplishment, Achievement, and Mastery References. Emotional Economics: Measuring What Matters. Since the economy came crashing down on us in 2008, there’s been a growing consensus that our economic system as we know it is not sustainable. What we’ve since learned is that money is fiction and the security we think we’ve been building all these years is a myth. Other than its dysfunction, nothing in the conventional economy seems real. So what does the new economy that everyone’s talking about look like?

A clear theme at Sustainable Brands ’11 is the importance of our emotions, particularly happiness. In 1972, Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck established the term “gross national happiness” which aims to measure quality of life or social progress as opposed to gross domestic product, which is only concerned with financial gains. Martin Seligman’s Flourish has been referenced frequently at the conference. It appears that if our population focused more on our spirituality, our empathy for flourishing enterprises would, ahem, flourish and our Wellness Economy would boom. Forget GDP: The Social Progress Index Measures National Well-Being. If you were to line up the poster for every James Bond movie ever, you would notice that pretty much all of them look like very sleek, very stylish advertisements for handguns and well-tailored suits.

Forget GDP: The Social Progress Index Measures National Well-Being

Sometimes a lady is involved. For the most part, though, artillery and menswear are the bread and butter of the series’ print ad game. However, agency Herring & Haggis is giving us a glimpse at what it might look like if the movies’ marketers went in a different direction. Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein - A Short Film.

Four Arguments on Sacred Economics. A summary of the main proposals in Charles Eistenstein’s book, Sacred Economics.

Four Arguments on Sacred Economics

Excerpted from Devin Martin: ” I would like to offer a brief summary and commentary on four key ideas contained in his work. I highly recommend you investigate further. Charles Eisenstein. Subscribe to Charles Newsletter Connect on Facebook Read Online Welcome to the HTML version of Sacred Economics.

Charles Eisenstein

The full version is here in English, along with full and partial translations into other languages. More translated material comes on-line all the time, so check back often. Charles Eisenstein. Charles Eisenstein Sacred Economics London July 2012. The Gift Economy and the Commons. Authors@Google: David Graeber, DEBT: The First 5,000 Years.