The Economics of Freedom.

Others will say this more eloquently. I’m saying it bluntly.

Each year, the WEF offers smart views. Each year, many of us sense they won’t resolve the deeper problems we face — because they don’t reach the root of the issues (the true meaning of ‘radical’). 

Western capitalism isn’t just under strain; it’s structurally collapsing and taking the planet with it. Yet economic freedom is still framed as freedom to: trade without interference, accumulate capital, and profit which favours the wealthy and the west. This version of economic freedom has little concern for the human and ecological limits screaming STOP.

Economic freedom isn’t market-based. It’s life-based.

Are we free to cultivate the lives we have reason to value?

Is life itself able to continue flourishing on this planet?

True economic freedom depends both on external social structures and on internal human capacities that enable us to work in the morning, fish or paint in the afternoon, spend time with friends in the evening, all while tending to the web of life we are part of.

Economic freedom isn’t financial independence that depends on money markets. It requires decoupling from the logic of a collapsing system that embeds inequality, extraction, and injustice in the pursuit of endless growth built on unsustainable consumption.

Global leaders are starting to publicly acknowledge the difficult truth that something is dying. 

The Canadian PM’s WEF speech was a principled thunderbolt in dark skies. He spoke truth to power, naming what many avoid: ‘old world order is not coming back’ and we need to break free of destructive power dynamics. But the proposed solutions remained constrained by the same capitalist logic — more trade, more growth, more consumption.

True economic freedom cannot be measured by GDP. It is felt in our lived experience. It’s the opposite of what economists identify as the emotional signature of western capitalism: a constant sense of unease and restlessness. 

Freedom feels like the ongoing liberation of potentials and reliable contentment - for all.