About

Embodied Economics is my ongoing inquiry into the Big Stories (some call these meta-narratives or paradigms), that shape our economic and financial systems and structures.

What is the economy? What is profit? How are economic policy decisions made? Who creates money? Why does economics so often ignore what is most important to us as humans? When we begin to ask these questions, we quickly run into other questions typically siloed in other disciplines: How are values and priorities defined and determined? How should we organize and govern ourselves? How should money be allocated? Who has decision-making power? And ultimately: Who are we in relation to ourselves, others, and the planet?

Despite economics positioning itself as a scientific and mathematical discipline, how we construct monetary, financial, and economic systems is not an exercise of cold calculation. Our systems, more accurately, are an expression of our cultural, philosophical, and even religious views about who we are as a species and how to best organize society. And because our views can evolve and change, so can our systems.

This newsletter is a space to unpack these questions through the lens of what I'm calling "The Forgotten Five" of economics: the body, nature, power, care, and interconnectedness. These five themes will occur as regular prisms through which to view and understand the world.

Because the world does not exist in disciplines, only contexts, I will attempt to weave in concepts or information from fields like biology, cognitive science, psychology, history, and sociology, among others. I will also seek to incorporate voices from faith and wisdom traditions, activist communities, and advocacy organizations who have long embodied the practices of a more human economy.

Embodied Economics is less an answer than a question — more provocation than immediate solution. It is a space for shared exploration, and I welcome your feedback and mutual inquiry, as we explore what it might mean to re-center the Forgotten Five as the real Big Stories in our economic and financial systems.