Molly Scott Cato

Claims that we need a 'big society' to fix our 'broken' one are just Victorian throwbacks - we have the business tools to survive; we just need a co-operative attitude to go with them

The French have a much better word for it: 'decroissance'. Using ugly and frightening terms like 'degrowth' won't help pave the way for a new and exciting economics

'Rational Economic Man' can be a useful mathematical construct. The trouble is, far too many economists seem to have taken him to their heart, and now believe him to be real

Why, asks Molly Scott Cato, did it take a volcanic eruption to demonstrate to us the hugely fragile links that hold our modern lives and economy together?

Banks - love 'em or hate 'em, they're an integral part of nearly every economic system. But just how would they function in a steady-state, earth-linked economy?

Molly would glady have been tied to the stake with the other Metric Martyrs... but, being that she wasn't, she's keen to point out why weights and measures matter to all

An obsession with celebrity is costing us more than our free time - it has led to a culture in which individual endeavour is the only form of success

Economists have all but forgotten about the source of real wealth - the land under our feet. They do so at their peril

No hairshirt or sandals for Molly this year - she's bellowing carols and splashing the cash (in her local currency, of course)

Carbon trading cannot work. How do we know this? Because economic theory tells us so

There's been plenty of excitement over China and India's pledges to reduce the 'carbon intensity' of their economies. But without absolute limits, this is just business as usual

There seems to be chemical cures for every possible human condition - from obesity to shyness. What we really need are more healing hands, argues Molly Scott Cato

Molly gets her knuckles rapped for not including standard economic models in her university teaching, and wonders if the profession is disappearing up its own regression formula...

In drowning out the voices of those economists that don't adhere to neoclassical orthodoxy, the current global financial collapse was inevitable

The whole notion of a 'work/life balance' is a symptom of how divided we have become from what makes our lives meaningful, and what brings home the bacon

What do a privatised post office and jogging have in common? They’re both inefficient, obsolete and all about the bottom line.

If it is not to be choked by debt and taxes, Ireland must return to the self-sufficient, localised vision of one of its founding fathers

This budget season, and so a short perambulation around the vexed question of the national debt seems in order. As a nation we've been living with debt for more the 300 years now, since 1694 to be precise, when Scottish privateer William Paterson persuaded the government of the time that creating £1.2 million of IOUs would get them out of their spending difficulties.

The creation of a new and neutral currency unit linked to the environment would stabilise the economy and reduce CO₂.

The world has watched the vertiginous collapse of the Icelandic economy in recent months with a mixture of fascination and horror.

Creating cash should not be the responsibility of the private banking system, but of the common wealth. Let’s get mutual, urge Molly Scott Cato and Martin Large

Gordon Brown's Budget was disappointing. But not just because of its economic niceties. It fails to address key issues which have become taboo amongst economists - money, debt and economic growth. Molly Scott Cato, a green economist and Senior Lecturer in Social Economy at the Cardiff School of Management, addresses all three...