Yet even these forms of wealth eventually dissipate: tractors rust; trees decompose; people die; ideas are forgotten. Only one form of wealth persists through time and that is the regenerative power of life, powered by the sun.

The butterfly

With nature as model, we can study and mimic life’s cyclical processes of take and give, death and renewal, in which one creature’s waste becomes another’s food. As measure, nature sets the ecological standard by which to judge the sustainability of our own innovations: do they measure up and fit in by participating in natural cycles? And with

We are big-brained animals, but we are newcomers on this planet, so we are still acting like toddlers expecting Mother Nature to clean up after us. I want us to take on this design task and become full participants in every one of nature’s cycles. Start with the carbon cycle – let’s learn to halt our industrial ‘exhale’ of carbon pollution, and

a linear industrial system whose design is inherently degenerative.

First, act in service to human prosperity in a flourishing web of life, recognising all that it depends upon. Second, respect autonomy in the communities that you serve by ensuring their engagement and consent, while remaining ever aware of the inequalities and differences that may lie within them.

conceived of household management as a domestic affair and so suggested no ethics to guide it (since he believed he already knew how to manage women and slaves). But economics now guides the management of nations and of our planetary household, profoundly influencing the lives of us all. Is it, then, time for economists to get serious about ethics?

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, inspired a set of ethical principles, summed up in the modern Hippocratic Oath, that still guide doctors today, including: first do no harm; prioritise the patient; treat the whole person, not just the symptom; obtain prior informed consent; and call on the expertise of others when needed.

‘The tendency to transform doing well into a speculative investment boom is the basic instability in a capitalist economy.’