Rethinking the Economy

Now that I’ve used Getting Green Done to flesh out part of my argument, here’s the latest version of my framework.
The conventional economic framework, a.k.a. Econ 101, says the economy can be broken into 3 layers:

People are calculators: they rationally pursue their self-interest given near perfect information about the world
Organizations are calculators
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Now that I’ve laid out some basic principles & assumptions, it’s time for my first extremely rough draft of a model for thinking about the economy to create a better world. With the principles & assumptions, I’ve been thinking about them for quite a while. This model? This is my first time — the “Stumbling [...]

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Most economists start from the same assumption about organizations that they make about people: they are rational and make well-informed, calculated decisions based on their self-interest.
You might ask, did these economists ever have a real job? If so, were they taking Acid or Ecstasy most of the time? How did they get the idea that [...]

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When most economists talk about the economy, they start from the assumption that people are calculators. If you want to understand how the economy works, they say, pretend that people are rational and that they have all the info they need to make a decision. Take a gazillion people making decisions in their rational self-interest, [...]

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If a lioness wants to catch more gazelles, she could practice sneaking up on them. She could work on her sprinting skills. In short, she could increase her odds of succeeding according to the current rules.
But if a lioness was a business, she’d have another option. She could try to get a law passed discouraging [...]

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If you want to buy a car, you can choose it yourself. Sure, you can get advice from your uncle, who’s like your own personal Car Talk (only without an off button). Or you can watch TV ads that teach you how buying the right ride will bring fun into your life and [...]

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Say you’re running a small business and you want to do right by your employees. You want to pay a good wage, offer good health care benefits, support worklife balance. But you’re swimming in an ecological niche where most of your competitors pay crappy wages and no benefits. Treating your employees better would give you [...]

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Once upon a time there was a character named Smokey the Bear. Smokey would tell children, only you can prevent forest fires. Be careful with matches and campfires, and the forest will be safe.
Turns out Smokey was wrong — you can’t prevent forest fires. You can avoid tossing a lit cigarette into a [...]

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