Module 1: What is a wellbeing economy?
Delivering on social and ecological wellbeing
A wellbeing economy is an economy that is designed to deliver social and ecological wellbeing, drawing on the unique strengths of all four segments of the economy: households, the commons, the state, and the market. In a wellbeing economy, the rules, norms and incentives for all four segments of the economy are set up to deliver quality of life and flourishing for all people, in harmony with our environment.
A co-creative process with WEAll members in 2019 led to the identification of five ‘design principles’ for a wellbeing economy: the WEAll needs.
These five needs are not ‘new’:
They are contained in the worldviews of many First Nations communities, such as the ancient African principle of ‘ubuntu’, the Andean Indigenous concept of ‘buen vivir’ [1], and the scripts of many religions.
They can be read in the work of development experts and in research findings about what makes for a meaningful life [2] [3] [4] [5].
They feature in evidence from psychology about human needs [6] and from neuroscience about what makes our brains react [7].
They are reflected in recent Constitutions like those of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009).
And they can be heard loud and clear in deliberative policy conversations with people all over the world about what matters to them in their lives.
Click on the Deep Dive card to learn more about how the concept of the wellbeing economy builds on Indigenous worldviews and economic practices:
References
[1] Acosta, A. & Abarca, M.M. (2018). ‘Buen Vivir: An alternative perspective from the peoples of the Global South to the crisis of capitalis modernity’. In: V. Satgar, The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives, Wits University Press, pp. 131–47.
[2] Doyal L. & Gough, I. (1991). A theory of human need. London: Macmillan
[3] Max-Neef, M. (1991). Human scale development: conception, application, and further reflections. New York: The Apex Press.
[4] Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities: the human development approach. Cambridge, MA: First Harvard University Press.
[5] Sen, A. (2000). Development as freedom. New York: Random House.
[6] Huppert, F.. & Cooper, C. (eds.) (2014). Wellbeing: A complete reference guide. Interventions and policies to enhance wellbeing. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
[7] Strang, S. & Park, S.Q. (2016) Human cooperation and its underlying mechanisms. In: Wöhr, M. & Krach, S. (eds.), Social behavior from rodents to humans. Current topics in behavioral neurosciences, Vol 30. Springer, Cham.