Since the publication of the Foundational Economy book in 2018, our thinking has moved on in an incremental way through public interest reports, working papers and academic articles on a broad range of topics. Many in our audience will have read some but not all of these outputs, so here is a new working paper Meeting social needs on a damaged planet which draws together material from these diverse outputs.

The first section explains the distinction between Foundational Economy ( FE 1.0) which focuses on meeting social needs without explicit concern for the environment and Foundational Economy 2.0 ( FE 2.0) which relocates the foundational project within the environmental limits we have to respect on our damaged planet The second section introduces distinctive foundational metrics like residual income and the concept of reliance system which underlines how socio technic systems practically frame social needs. The third and final section recommends the care-ful practice of radical policy through new forms of governance and experimental learning which displace mainstream ideas about sectoral intervention as industrial policy.

More Working Papers can be read here.