The Project

The aim of the "needs and limits" initiative is to help humankind reverse ecological overshoot and to achieve sustainable well-being.

This shift requires that we radically alter the way we determine key economic outcomes such as production quantities, resource and waste flows, and population levels. For most economies today, these outcomes arise spontaneously from the logic of capitalism, which is rooted in corporate profits and manipulated consumer wants. The approach suggested here is to replace this logic with one based on human needs and natural limits, and to derive economic objectives explicitly from these new principles.

My proposal for the replacement logic is the Economics of Needs and Limits (ENL). This conceptual framework is summarized in the overview and fully covered in the book shown at right.

Strategy

The transition to a new mode of civilization requires a workable strategy to achieve fundamental economic and ecological change. This requires the replacement of capitalism's economic logic and the evolution of its institutions in a process called organic change. The strategy document lists the key points of this approach.

to download the 250-page pdf book "Needs and Limits: A New Economics for Sustainable Well-being" self-published by Frank Rotering in LULU.COM in 2010, click on

members.shaw.ca/needsandlimits/pdf_files/needs_and_limits-3rd_edition.pdf