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A Planetary Economy

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  • © 2020

Overview

  • Articulates the coevolution of the economy and nature, highlighting the consequences of misalignment between the two, such as climate change and pandemics
  • Unveils a new economy—aligned with nature—by proposing requirements for norms, institutions, governance, policies and instruments
  • Articulates the scale of the opportunity ahead for widespread prosperity and economic stability
  • Presents market planetarianism: a new paradigm that shifts the power of the markets from accumulating massive wealth for the few to serving as an engine of change toward a desired state for the whole planet and its population
  • Establishes a policy roadmap for market planetarianism as the prescriptive companion to Economics of a Crowded Planet

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Table of contents (18 chapters)

  1. Part I

  2. Part II

  3. Part III

Keywords

About this book

This book asks, how would a stable, prosperous economy of the future look if one started with a blank sheet of paper? Given that the world’s economy is locked into a coevolution with nature, the urgency of this question is brought into stark relief by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and ongoing climate change.

While physical technologies to build such an economy mostly exist, the social technologies, in the form of institutions, governance and policies, do not. The development of these social technologies will necessitate a reconsideration of economic norms: in particular, what is the economy for, and what are we, as actors within it, striving for? This book integrates normative, institutional, political and economic requirements into a systematic framework to drive our present growth economy toward a future planetarian one. It outlines a suite of interrelated policies to increase the economy’s material efficiency, establish a basic living standard, and reform the money system, while along the way eliminating economic debt and balancing government budgets.

The framework and policies together form a paradigm of market planetarianism: the idea that the power of markets may be used to steer the economy toward a desired long-term goal. The methodological aspects of this paradigm are covered in the companion volume, Economics of a Crowded Planet.

Reviews

“If you wonder whether it’s possible to have an economic system that guarantees prosperity for all and operates in alignment with nature, this book should be at your bedside table. It is a brilliant, beautifully written tour de force that shows how markets can be guided toward those goals without a monstrously powerful state. I guarantee it will change the way you think about economics!” -Peter Barnes, Author, With Liberty and Dividends for All

“A timely, wide-ranging, in-depth exploration of the social, economic and political foundations of a planetary economy.” -Mary Mellor, Emeritus Professor, Northumbria University

Authors and Affiliations

  • Economist, San Rafael, USA

    Fraser Murison Smith

About the author

Fraser Murison Smith is an energy specialist in public utilities, formerly an information systems consultant and award-winning cleantech entrepreneur. After completing a PhD in theoretical ecology at Oxford University, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in ecological economics. He has published papers on fisheries, biodiversity and economic development, as well as two books, Environmental Sustainability: Practical Global Implications (1997) and Economics of a Crowded Planet (2019). Murison Smith and his wife, a healthcare technology leader, share their home in Northern California with two wonderful children and a canoe and tent on standby for spontaneous forays into the surrounding mountains, rivers and lakes.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: A Planetary Economy

  • Authors: Fraser Murison Smith

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49296-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-49295-3Published: 28 August 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-49298-4Published: 28 August 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-49296-0Published: 27 August 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXIX, 520

  • Number of Illustrations: 46 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Environmental Economics, Climate Change, Environmental Policy, Economic Policy, Heterodox Economics

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