The rise of patents, followed by copyright and trademarks, created intellectual property regimes that initially spurred on the industrial revolution but then began colonising the commons of traditional knowledge, with a growing number of patents seeking to monopolise know-how that had been collectively developed. With great irony, the intensive ove

‘There is no wealth but life,’ as John Ruskin wrote in 1860. His words were poetic but they were prophetic too. Economic value lies not in the throughflow of products and services but in the wealth that is their recurring source. That includes the wealth embodied in human-made assets (from tractors to houses) but also the wealth embodied in people

That’s what researchers in the US discovered when they set out to explore how to prompt pro-environmental behaviour. They set up signs at a petrol station inviting passing motorists to have a free tyre check, offering either financial, safety or environmental reasons for doing so. The forecourt sign saying ‘Care about your finances? Get a free tire

What’s more, Friedman’s narrow view on the business of business has lost credibility: in the face of twenty-first-century challenges, firms need a purpose far more inspiring than merely maximising shareholder value and, as Chapter 6 illustrates, a growing number of enterprises are finding ways to give themselves one.

Perhaps these are first steps towards the kind of moral and social progress that Mill was imagining as he looked forward to a time when people who were no longer engrossed in the art of getting on would aspire instead to the art of living.

Simply thinking like a consumer, it seems, triggers self-regarding behaviour, and divides rather than unites groups who are facing a common scarcity.

Rather than aiming to predict and control the economy’s behaviour, says Eric Beinhocker, a leading thinker in this field, economists should ‘think of policy as an adapting portfolio of experiments that helps to shape the evolution of the economy and society over time’. It’s an approach that aims to mimic the process of natural selection, often summ

But in the context of today’s social and ecological crises, how can this single, narrow metric still command such international attention?

Political theorists such as Robert Putnam use the term ‘social capital’ to describe the wealth of trust and reciprocity that is created within social groups as a result of their networks of relationships.