Are we using the wrong ruler to measure human progress?
The “Discarded Economist”—takes us on a journey through history, thermodynamics, and alternative economic thought to show that today’s broken systems weren’t always set in stone. From the hidden traps of end-of-pipe solutions to the forgotten economic thinkers who held the key to true sustainability, this episode challenges us to overcome “learned helplessness” and rethink how wealth, resources, and community value should actually work.
Key Topics Covered:
The Illusion of End-of-Pipe Economics 🚰: Why circular economy efforts fail when they only focus on manufacturing waste instead of redesigning the root structures.
Institutional Traps 🏦: How Bretton Woods, the IMF, the World Bank, and the OECD shifted from rebuilding nations to preserving a growth-obsessed status quo.
Frugal Innovation & The Global South 💡: Lessons from C.K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid on creativity under constraint.
The Forgotten Economic Visionaries 📚:
Henry George: Land value tax and ending the passive exploitation of property.
Arthur Pigou: Externality taxes, the polluter-pays principle, and a 1920s vision for guaranteed basic income.
Silvio Gesell: The concept of Freigeld (free money) and demurrage to stop money hoarding, as tested in Wörgl, Austria.
Karl Polanyi: Re-embedding economy into society and stopping the commodification of human beings.
Kenneth Boulding & Herman Daly: Challenging Keynesian growth, throughput, and steady-state economics.
Elinor Ostrom: Managing “the commons” and shared community governance.
Featured Quote: “End of pipe means that whatever comes out of the sewage, that’s when we start trying to come up with solutions, which is way too late.”
