I was interested to read and view this video from one of the authors of the excellent book Nudge. On the blog, Cass Sunstein – one of the US’s most eminent lawyers and a past colleague of Barack Obama – compares Obama to Roosevelt. I would recommend Nudge as an interesting examination of alternative and behavioural approaches to economics – as refreshing as was Freakonomics – and for those of you interested in more on Behavioural Economics I would recommend this NEF reader on the subject.
The comparison to FDR was what particularly caught my eye because I have been working with a group of like-minded people from politics, business, NGOs and think-tanks recently on the Green New Deal which updates FDRs New Deal to respond to planetary ecosystem meltdown and climate change. Take a look at neweconomics.org as I think this is an initiative which you will be hearing more of in the future. The kinds of ideas in the Green New Deal are some of the issues we examine in Citizen Renaissance in terms of radical policy and investment responses to climate change set to rock the commercial world and with huge implications for communications, advertising, marketing and PR.
Nudge and some of the ideas it investigates represents a more people-focused form of economics which will be crucial if we are going to move towards a Wellbeing Economy. Both behavioural economics and wellbeing economics are issues David Cameron’s party are making central to their vision for the UK. It will be interesting to see if Gordon Brown will catch on and join this debate. We examine this Wellbeing Economics and the revolutions it will require from politics, business and all of us in Citizen Renaissance – our wiki book which will be online for you to join the debate from 11th August.
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