SCHOOL OF CARING ECONOMICS

School of Caring Economics

Working towards building an economic model based on care for people and for the planet

WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT ….

Caring Economics is about economic policies that care for people and for the planet. The model of Caring Economics is focused on maintaining, continuation, and repairing the world in which we live, in order to improve quality of life for all in a sustainable way, leaving no one behind. The coronavirus outbreak reveals that care is a deeply rooted universal human value that works in times of profound crisis, when people are taking responsibility, acting in solidarity and caring for themselves and for others who need help. If we build our future economic model on the universal value of the caring human being, instead of the ‘homo economics’, we will get a completely different world that increases happiness and quality of life instead of Gross National Product.

OUR VALUES

Care work is an activity that can be expressed in objective criteria such as time or (equivalent) value. Care also has an intrinsic value that refers to an attitude or moral orientation, which expresses specific emotions of inter-relationship among people, such as lovingness, affection, warm-heartedness, friendship, esteem, tenderness, responsibility, concern about someone or something, commitment and attentiveness.

The Economy of Care is a model based on the paradigm of the ‘Caring human being’, a human image based on a holistic approach, which recognizes and values the multiple identities of individuals and groups of persons, their interdependency and mutual bonds.

MISSION & PHILOSOPHY

Our mission is to create an economic model that is human-centred and respects the limits of our planet.

The approach of Caring Economics embraces the Ethics of Care, a new philosophical school that surged since the 1980’s and describes the significance of women’s contributions to society, including pro-creation, mothering and unpaid care labour, and “everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web.” (Joan Tronto, 1993)

OUR COMMITMENT

We are part of the initiative of World House in Wetten (Germany), a conference guesthouse that pursues to put in practice the concept of caring economics at micro-level;

We exchange knowledge and experience about caring economics with the international network of experts of OQ Consulting;

We organise training and summer school on caring economics in theory and practice.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Summer School

The Summer School is a 5 day event organised by the School of Caring Economics along with Leapfrog2SD. The event will take place at World House Wetten and incorporate presentations, lectures, lively discussions & activities to shape the economies of the future.

This is a dynamic event designed to bring clarity regarding the world we live in from an economic perspective and to spark discussion & creative thinking about the changes that need to be made in our thinking, working, living, consumption habits, use of resources – almost every aspect of human life.

The places are limited as we aim to create a community-like atmosphere where everybody can voice their opinion and can be heard. We have invited speakers in several different fields who will tell us about the current economic paradigm, why it is unsustainable and how it will need to change in order to accommodate for a healthy planet and social communities.