Economy & Environment

What prosperity should accomplish for life

Drawn from the Governing for Life discussion paper. Linked references open the supporting sources.

The Core Question

What if the purpose of an economy were not to maximize transactions, but to maximize the conditions in which life can flourish?

This question does not imply that GDP, profits, employment, markets or trade are unimportant. They are essential information. The problem arises when they become proxies for the whole of human progress. GDP records market production; it was never designed to tell us whether families are secure, ecosystems are recovering, products are durable, communities are cohesive, or future generations are inheriting more options than the present generation received.

More extraction, more throughput, more waste

The dominant industrial model is still largely linear. Materials are extracted, converted into products, transported, consumed and eventually discarded. Efficiency has improved in many sectors, but total material demand continues to rise. UNEP's Global Resources Outlook 2024 states that resource extraction has tripled over five decades and warns that extraction could rise a further 60% by 2060 without urgent action.

• Greater mining, logging, water use and land conversion can intensify pressure on ecosystems and biodiversity.

• More material throughput generally means more energy use, transport, processing and waste management.

• Countries dependent on imported materials become more vulnerable to geopolitical disruption and price shocks.

• Environmental costs may occur far from the consumers who receive the final product, making those costs easy to ignore.

Planned and premature obsolescence

A system that earns revenue from repeated replacement can create incentives that conflict with durability. Premature obsolescence can arise from weak components, difficult disassembly, unavailable parts, locked software, discontinued updates or repair costs that approach the cost of replacement. The European Union's 2024 Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation explicitly identifies premature obsolescence as a problem and creates a framework for durability, reliability, repairability, upgradability, reuse and recyclability requirements.

The economic paradox is simple: a durable appliance repaired twice over thirty years may create fewer sales transactions than five short-lived appliances, even though the durable product can provide more service with fewer materials and less household expense. Economic activity and human value are therefore not always the same thing.

Costs that disappear from the price tag

Many economic decisions treat pollution, resource depletion, ecosystem damage and some health consequences as externalities — costs not fully borne by the producer or purchaser. When those costs are transferred to taxpayers, neighboring communities, other species or future generations, the market price can understate the true cost of the activity.

A product can therefore appear profitable while part of its real cost is being paid elsewhere. Better accounting would not eliminate disagreement about values, but it would make trade-offs harder to hide.

Growth that can conceal declining well-being

GDP is valuable for measuring economic output, but the OECD emphasizes that it does not reveal whether life as a whole is improving, who receives the gains, or whether present prosperity is sustainable. A country can record higher output while simultaneously experiencing environmental depletion, housing stress, worsening health, loss of leisure time or declining social trust.

This does not make GDP misleading when used for its intended purpose. It means GDP should sit inside a broader dashboard rather than serve as the single scoreboard for national success.

A plausible continuation pathway

Change the objective function

The most fundamental change would be conceptual: the economy becomes a means rather than the final end. Public policy would seek durable prosperity within ecological limits while preserving freedom, innovation and pluralism.

Prosperity = the durable capacity of people, communities and the living world to flourish — now and in the future.

Economic growth would still be welcomed when it improves that capacity. Growth that depends primarily on depletion, avoidable waste or shifting costs onto others would be evaluated differently.

Make durability economically rational

Product policy can change the incentives facing manufacturers and consumers. The goal is not to dictate one design, but to reward products that retain value for longer.

• Minimum durability and reliability standards where justified.

• Repairability and durability information at the point of purchase.

• Reasonably available spare parts, manuals and diagnostic information.

• Design for disassembly, component replacement and software longevity.

• Longer warranties where appropriate and incentives for repair rather than disposal.

• Support for refurbishment, remanufacturing, second-hand markets and material recovery.

The EU's current repair and ecodesign rules provide a real-world example. They seek longer product lifetimes, easier repair, spare-parts access and consumer information. Such policies also create economic activity — but shift it from repeated disposal toward maintenance, repair, upgrading and remanufacturing.

Internalize costs without hiding the trade-offs

Where feasible, prices and public decisions should reflect lifecycle costs. This can involve pollution pricing, producer responsibility, deposit-return systems, resource royalties, restoration requirements, procurement standards or liability rules. The exact mechanism should depend on the problem.

The important principle is transparency: if an activity creates benefits and harms, decision-makers should see both. A policy that protects an ecosystem but makes essential goods unaffordable has a social cost. A policy that keeps prices low by transferring damage to future generations has an ecological cost. Good governance presents both sides and searches for designs that reduce the trade-off.

From linear production to circular value

What might improve if the transition succeeds?

• Products last longer and household replacement costs fall.

• Repair, maintenance, refurbishment and remanufacturing become larger employment sectors.

• Material and energy demand per unit of useful service declines.

• Pollution and waste fall because prevention becomes economically valuable.

• Supply chains become more resilient through reuse, recycling and diversified sourcing.

• Productivity gains from AI and automation can translate into more time and security, not only higher output.

• Public decisions become more transparent because trade-offs are explicitly measured.

• Future generations inherit functioning infrastructure, productive capacity and healthier natural systems.

• International cooperation becomes easier when countries organize around shared practical interests rather than total ideological agreement.

Risks of the alternative model

A life-centered system can also fail if badly designed. Environmental rules can become bureaucratic, expensive or captured by incumbents. Broad well-being measures can be manipulated. Long-term planning can become an excuse to override democratic choice. Industrial policy can waste public money. Repair mandates can impose costs where repair is unsafe or uneconomic. Resource pricing can hurt low-income households if revenues are not recycled fairly.

For that reason, the alternative should not replace one unquestionable ideology with another. It needs democratic accountability, independent evidence, competition, experimentation, transparent cost-benefit analysis and the ability to reverse policies that do not work.

A new definition of progress

The deepest change would be cultural. A successful society would no longer ask only, “How much did we produce this year?” It would also ask:

• Did people become healthier and more secure?

• Did people of all ages have the opportunity and support to pursue their education and skills training goals?

• Did the average household gain useful time as well as income?

• Did we increase or diminish the productive inheritance of the next generation?

• Did our products provide more service with fewer materials?

• Did rivers, soils, forests and biodiversity improve or decline?

• Did technology expand human freedom and creativity?

• Did prosperity become more resilient to war, climate shocks and supply disruptions?

• Did our decisions leave people with more meaningful choices?

The central transition is from measuring how fast the economic machine turns to measuring what the machine is accomplishing for life.

How this connects

Education and opportunity · Resources and supply chains · Public decisions and accountability

Evidence to explore

UNEP: extraction and resource pressures · OECD: well-being alongside GDP · EU: the ecodesign framework · European Commission: repair policy