The Price of Fish: A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions - Hardcover

Mainelli, Michael; Harris, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1857885716 ISBN 13: 9781857885712

Publisher: UNKNO, 2011

Synopsis

Winner of the 2012 Gold Medal IPPY Award in the category of Finance/Investment/Economics

Welcome to a radical new way of thinking, one that makes sense of the way the world really works-beyond economics. In The Price of Fish: Making Sense of the Way the World Really Works, author Michael Mainelli reveals the meaning of real commerce, the complex way in which people and organizations communicate with each other every day. Too often when we refer to markets, we look at the narrow view of transactional commerce-what we call buying and selling-which is only a small part of the landscape. In this groundbreaking book, Mainelli reveals the big picture of real commerce and that it is what drives society, politics, the economy and, ultimately, our future.

About this title

About the Author

Educated at Harvard, Michael Mainelli is Commerce Professor Emeritus and Fellow at Gresham College (founding home of the Royal Society and former home to Christopher Wren). He is also Visiting Professor at LSE and was responsible for creating the London Accord the world s leading research cooperative into environmental, social and governance investment. He is the co-founder of Z/Yen, the City of London s leading commercial think-tank established in 1994 to promote societal advance through better finance and technology. Over the course of his career, he has worked in economics, political science, seismology, cartography, energy information, research and development, in defence and at the highest level of accountancy.

Ian Harris is a co-founder of Z/Yen, having previously conceived and launched the award-winning joint venture Charity Share and guided the Marine Stewardship Council towards a Best Practice award for its strategic planning and governance, as well as working to solve other problems of long-term thinking in charities and other non-governmental organizations.

After studying law and economics, Ian Harris qualified as an accountant and practised as a consultant with numerous high- profile clients, but found himself drawn to the problems of long-term thinking in charities and other non-governmental organizations. Ian is Chair of BCS The Chartered Institute for IT’s Ethics Group. In 1994 Michael and Ian founded Z/Yen. Together they have guided the Marine Stewardship Council towards a Best Practice award, conceived the ground-breaking joint venture Charityshare, built award-winning statistical systems and created the Global Financial Centers Index. They have worked with organizations as diverse as IBM, the London Stock Exchange and the Church of England.

From the Inside Flap

Now, more than at any other time in our history, the world is faced with a series of vicious and apparently insurmountable difficulties, chief among them unstable financial markets, rapidly diminishing resources and an eco-system that is becoming dangerously volatile.

In The Price of Fish Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris examine in a unique way the world’s most abiding and wicked problems – sustainability, global warming, over-fishing, overpopulation the pensions crises; all of which are characterized by a set of messy, circular, aggressive and peculiarly long-term problems – and go on to suggest that it is not the circumstances that are too complex, but our way of reading them that is too simple. Too simple and often wrong.

Looking to the models developed by quantum physicists, the authors aim to blend four streams – choice, economics, systems and evolution – in a combination they believe is the key to making better decisions and, in turn, finding answers to the world’s most pernicious problems.

Transactional commerce – buying and selling – is only a small part of the real world of commerce in the larger sense of the world. This book goes beyond economics alone to look at real commerce, and the ways complex interactions adapt and change over time: the price of fish, for instance, cannot be right when we have over-fishing, hunger and ruined seas.

Just as physicists strive towards a unifying theory that makes sense of the universe as it actually is, Mainelli and Harris are taking steps towards understanding the knotty world we live in, not a simple exercise in chess-players’ logic but an approach which addresses the complex, the cyclical, the hostile and the protracted – helping, communities large and small to make better decisions. If we’re ever going to solve the unsolvable, the first steps start here.

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857885716
• ISBN 13: 9781857885712
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340