The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream
The idea of sufficiency faces great obstacles in contemporary political economies in which production and consumption growth has long been considered imperative. Despite evidence supporting calls for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth approach to environmental challenges, only pro-growth environmen...
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crfrontiers:10.3389/frsus.2022.966876 2024-06-23T07:54:05+00:00 The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream Hayden, Anders Dasilva, Clay 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876/full unknown Frontiers Media SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Sustainability volume 3 ISSN 2673-4524 journal-article 2022 crfrontiers https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876 2024-06-11T04:07:51Z The idea of sufficiency faces great obstacles in contemporary political economies in which production and consumption growth has long been considered imperative. Despite evidence supporting calls for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth approach to environmental challenges, only pro-growth environmental perspectives have found significant mainstream political support until now. However, one recent formulation that has a strong affinity with a sufficiency approach—a wellbeing economy—has found growing support among mainstream political actors including governments and international organizations. Does the growing support for a wellbeing economy represent the long-sought breakthrough for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth environmental approach? To help answer this question, we conduct case studies of New Zealand, Scotland, and Iceland—the three founders of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). These nations have (to varying degrees) taken steps to downplay the centrality of economic growth and instead highlight wellbeing as the ultimate goal. They have also moved “beyond GDP” by introducing new wellbeing measurements and using them in policymaking. However, movement in a post-growth direction is limited by continuing dependence on economic growth to achieve intermediate goals, such as employment creation and provision of welfare state services, that are closely associated with the goal of wellbeing. We therefore characterize the emerging practice of the wellbeing economy as a “weak post-growth” approach. To become a “strong post-growth” perspective, it needs to be linked to a much more challenging project of disentangling contemporary societies' dependence on economic growth. The article includes a discussion of ways that WEGo nations could contribute to addressing that considerable challenge and build on the sufficiency-oriented elements evident in the wellbeing economy. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland Frontiers (Publisher) New Zealand Frontiers in Sustainability 3 |
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The idea of sufficiency faces great obstacles in contemporary political economies in which production and consumption growth has long been considered imperative. Despite evidence supporting calls for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth approach to environmental challenges, only pro-growth environmental perspectives have found significant mainstream political support until now. However, one recent formulation that has a strong affinity with a sufficiency approach—a wellbeing economy—has found growing support among mainstream political actors including governments and international organizations. Does the growing support for a wellbeing economy represent the long-sought breakthrough for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth environmental approach? To help answer this question, we conduct case studies of New Zealand, Scotland, and Iceland—the three founders of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). These nations have (to varying degrees) taken steps to downplay the centrality of economic growth and instead highlight wellbeing as the ultimate goal. They have also moved “beyond GDP” by introducing new wellbeing measurements and using them in policymaking. However, movement in a post-growth direction is limited by continuing dependence on economic growth to achieve intermediate goals, such as employment creation and provision of welfare state services, that are closely associated with the goal of wellbeing. We therefore characterize the emerging practice of the wellbeing economy as a “weak post-growth” approach. To become a “strong post-growth” perspective, it needs to be linked to a much more challenging project of disentangling contemporary societies' dependence on economic growth. The article includes a discussion of ways that WEGo nations could contribute to addressing that considerable challenge and build on the sufficiency-oriented elements evident in the wellbeing economy. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hayden, Anders Dasilva, Clay |
spellingShingle |
Hayden, Anders Dasilva, Clay The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
author_facet |
Hayden, Anders Dasilva, Clay |
author_sort |
Hayden, Anders |
title |
The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
title_short |
The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
title_full |
The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
title_fullStr |
The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
title_full_unstemmed |
The wellbeing economy: Possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
title_sort |
wellbeing economy: possibilities and limits in bringing sufficiency from the margins into the mainstream |
publisher |
Frontiers Media SA |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876/full |
geographic |
New Zealand |
geographic_facet |
New Zealand |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
Frontiers in Sustainability volume 3 ISSN 2673-4524 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.966876 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Sustainability |
container_volume |
3 |
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1802646046620254208 |