As part of Wyatt's forthcoming Perspectives on Investing report, political economist, researcher and author, Dr Katherine Trebeck explains the pillars of the wellbeing economy and shares her thoughts about the change that’s already underway.
When you look at what humans really want and need to thrive, what causes them to be fulfilled, so often it’s things like relationships, a
sense of purpose and being in nature. For example, when you ask people what really matters to them, they don't say they want to live like
Elon Musk. They say they want their family to be taken care of, they want time with their friends, they want a sense of dignity in their
work.
What's at the root of so many of the challenges we are seeing in Australia and around the world is how misaligned the outcomes of the current economy are with those sorts of goals.
We’re seeing folks become increasingly frustrated at that gap and often expressing that frustration in a way that's profoundly sad and dangerous. But there is some hope in that as well, because it means there’s nothing wrong with people, there’s something wrong with the economy.
‘While it’s hard to sum up the wellbeing economy in a simple phrase, it's essentially an
economy that works for people and planet rather than the other way around.’
It entails looking upstream of so many of the challenges facing the world today and identifying their economic root causes and taking
action to change the way the economy operates so that it is designed to deliver social and environmental outcomes.
For millennia, First Nations communities around the world have been living in accordance with the reality that the economy is nested within society, and society itself is nested within the natural world (more recently, feminist economists and ecological economists have been pointing to the same positioning of the economy as a sub-set of society and nature). This view positions the economy as a mechanism, a provisioning system, rather than a goal in and of itself. It means the economy needs to serve people and planet.
But to take that into practical economic system change requires a whole suite of shifts: from the local to national, from how we view energy systems, to the nature of business and jobs, how we design neighbourhood infrastructure, tax systems, measures of progress and much more. It’s not one simple change - it’s changing the dynamics of the economy and the way power and resources flow. It’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces. None of them on their own will be sufficient to change things, but together they start up to add up to systems change.
The four Ps
If we extend the jigsaw puzzle analogy, the four corners of the puzzle are the four Ps: purpose prevention, predistribution and people powered.
Purpose relates to what sort of economy we want. What's the goal of the economy? What are the business models that comprise it? How do we measure progress?
Prevention recognises that it’s not enough to spend a lot of money and effort after the fact, to try and repair, heal or fix the damage that’s been done. For example, if we had more jobs that paid people enough to live on and basic needs were more affordable, less money would need to be spent by government on rent assistance and homelessness services.
Predistribution goes beyond the role of government to reduce economic inequality through taxes and welfare transfers to ask how can the market economy do more of the heavy lifting? This might be things like worker owned cooperatives, community wealth building, true cost accounting, and various modes of economic democracy.
People power is making sure that people feel in control and at the forefront of this change, and particularly people who are badly served by the current system. In practical terms these are things like participatory democracy, citizens assemblies and participatory budgeting – and making the important concept of a just transition real and robust.
There are examples all over the world, including the town of Preston in England which is using a community wealth building agenda that keeps money locally. The council, hospitals, universities and supermarkets are all procuring locally. They’re focusing on local jobs in businesses with local ownership and how goods and services are priced. There are plenty of enterprises set up to serve workers or the community, meaning that things aren’t being priced to create huge margins for remote owners, but the firm is in business to serve a community, and when that happens you see very different approaches to decisions such as paying suppliers and paying workers and pricing goods and services.
Philanthropy’s unique role
Philanthropy is uniquely placed to take long term risks and invest in the ecosystem of actors that are needed to create change. Supporting a range of activities and approaches is important because it’s often only in the rearview mirror that we can see what the tipping point was in creating systems change. Philanthropy has a critical role in backing the systemic shifts that are needed, by giving a runway to activities, initiatives and individuals that are challenging the status quo with long-term funding that gives players the confidence to go beyond fighting for better funded band aids and other system compliant fixes.
Philanthropy can also use its own channels of influence. A lot of folks in philanthropy have soft power that can be used to call out some of the orthodoxy in dominant economic conversations that so often shape and constrain discussion about the economy. For example, they often have access to the corridors of power. It’s not about being political with a capital ‘P’ in the sense of parties, but economic system change is deeply political with a lowercase ‘p’ because it is about changing the balance of resources and established power structures.
This work also goes beyond questioning whether to change or not. Change is here. It's happening. The question is who is driving it, with what agenda, and to what degree justice and cherishing the planet are guiding goals.
Learn more about Dr Trebeck's work here.
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The Perspectives on Investing report, (available early April), shares the ‘Why and How’ with the ‘Who and What’ of Wyatt's investing for impact journey. To request a copy, sign up to receive our quarterly newsletter in the website footer below.
