Human-Centred Economics: The Living Standards of Nations Author: Richard Samans Published in association with the International Labour Organization (ILO). By Richard Samans, Springer 2024

Abstract

Richard Samans’s Human-Centred Economics offers a fundamental critique and structural reform of the prevailing liberal economic growth and development model. The book argues that modern economics has chronically underperformed in delivering social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and human resilience because of its nearly exclusive focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the wealth or production of nations. Tracing the problem not to the founding principles of classical political economy, but to a "wayward practice," Samans proposes restoring the discipline's dual focus. The core principle of "Human-Centred Economics" is that the median living standards of households must be a co-equal anchor of policy attention alongside GDP. To operationalize this, the author introduces an "aggregate distribution function," which formally integrates the institutional dimensions of a country’s social contract—including labor protection, financial governance, and environmental rules—into macroeconomic theory. The book frames this as a strategy to replace the "trickle-down" approach of neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus with a "Roosevelt Consensus". It details corresponding reforms for both domestic and international economic policy, arguing that governments have significant unexploited "policy space" to narrow their "welfare gap". Ultimately, the work seeks to strengthen market economies by institutionally hard-wiring inclusion, sustainability, and resilience, thereby charting a more viable, structural Middle Way that builds on the legacy of John Maynard Keynes.

Keywords. Human-Centred Economics; Living Standards of Nations; Neoliberalism/Washington Consensus; Social Contract; Aggregate Distribution Function.

JEL. E61; O15; B52; I31; P16.