We cannot grow trees in dry soil. While seeds might be healthy and sunlight is abundant, without the conditions for roots to take hold, growth can never happen. The same goes for today’s economy. There is plenty of capital (seeds) and technology (sunlight), thus making it extraordinarily good at expanding systems; still, it is far less effective at strengthening the people: the soil that supports everything. Today, we may have more technology, capital efficiency, and “output.” Yet human development progress has been stalled. The simplest way to see this is to compare how the economy moves with people’s earning power improvement. In the U.S., GDP growth has fluctuated year to year, yet the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009, demonstrating the weakening link between growth and livelihood.

Besides, the U.N. Development Programme notes that while human development is projected to reach record highs again, half of the poorest countries remain below their pre-crisis trajectory after the declines of 2020 and 2021. If the next era of growth is to be sustainable, it must be built around humans, and every human at that. The idea of a new economic paradigm that I call “sustainomy” aims to uplift people along with the system, argues that when economic output rises but the quality of life remains flat, growth is built at the cost of widening the gap between what the system can produce and what people can absorb.

Technology over humanity

Capitalism’s initial objective was productivity expansion. Adam Smith himself believed that when the economic pie grows, an improved quality of life would follow. Yet today, growth, modeled by GDP, often driven by manufacturing output, does not automatically translate into better living conditions, well-being, or happiness. Too often, it has, in fact, widened inequality and accelerated environmental degradation.

This is because according to the 2022 World Inequality Report, the lowest-earning half of the world holds merely 2% of global wealth, while wealth concentrates heavily at the top. In other words, the system is expanding while the median person experiences stagnation in living standards. While nominal wages in advanced economies have begun recovering after........

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