Economics is the study of production, consumption, and directly related matters.  Standard or mainstream economics, which addresses these topics from the capitalist perspective, is currently the dominant school of thought.  It is taught at universities around the world, and it provides economic direction to both corporations and governments. However, capitalism is an expansionary system that is a root cause of the ecological crisis.  It must therefore be urgently superseded.  Because the standard discipline reflects the system's ecocidal logic, it can no longer guide humankind's economic activities.

ENL is a conceptual framework that is intended to replace standard economics in this guiding role.  Its main purpose is to provide analysts with the tools required to establish rational economic objectives based on the goal of sustainable well-being.  The concepts and methods of standard economics will still be required, but primarily to analyze an economy's operations as these objectives are being pursued.

The ENL framework has two important attributes.  The first is its social neutrality.  This means that ENL is not slanted to either the progressive view of society, which values social solidarity over individual freedom, or the conservative view, which values freedom over solidarity.  Second, the framework is technologically neutral.  This means that economic progress is seen exclusively as an increase in sustainable well-being.  Rising technological sophistication, economic growth, and other factors are thus seen as irrelevant in this regard.

ENL is fully described in The Economics of Needs and Limits. A free PDF version of this book is available here.  For an overview of ENL see chapter seven of Youth Ecological Revolution or click the button below.