Jennifer B. Hinton, PhD
BOOK DESCRIPTION
What if profit wasn’t the thing organizing our economy? Game Changer argues that the crises of our era — consumerism, environmental breakdown, inequality, market concentration, political capture — aren’t accidents. They’re the predictable result of an economy set up to prioritize profit above all else. Using the metaphor of a game, Hinton lays out the “rulebook” of the for-profit economy and shows how it drives businesses toward destructive strategies regardless of who’s playing. But she doesn’t stop at the diagnosis: The book’s second half sets up an alternative — the Not-for-Profit Economy — with its own logic of serving, circulating, cooperating, and communicating, and shows how it supports economic equality, ecological stewardship, and widespread wellbeing. The final part turns to five strategies for readers who want to transform the game themselves.
Written for a lay audience, Game Changer is both a clear-eyed critique of the economy we have and a practical, hopeful blueprint for a better one we can build.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Hinton is an ecological economist, systems researcher, educator, and activist in the field of sustainable economy. Her work focuses on how societies relate to profit and how this relationship affects global sustainability challenges, like inequality and climate change.
Hinton holds a double PhD in Economics (from the University of Clermont Auvergne, France) and Sustainability Science (from Stockholm University, Sweden). As an activist, she collaborates with civil society organisations, businesses, and policymakers to transform the economy so that it can work for everyone within the ecological limits of the planet. She is an affiliated researcher at Uppsala University and a senior research fellow at the Schumacher Institute. Sign up at her website to be notified when the book is published: www.jenniferhinton.org
PRAISE FOR GAME CHANGER
“An essential piece of work to understand the dangers of profit-seeking. If you think greed is good, this book will change your mind. Finally a vision of what a post-growth economy could look like.”
Timothée Parrique, Researcher in economics at the University of Lausanne and author of Slow Down or Die.
“This timely book calls out one of the most influential levers for building an economy that serves people and planet. It offers ideas, examples, and hope for anyone wanting to be part of building that economy our world so urgently needs.”
Katherine Trebeck, Political economist at the University of Edinburgh and Economic
Change Lead at the The Next Economy
“We live in times that demand that we reimagine everything, and the way our economy works is absolutely at the top of the list. This book sets out an audacious template for how we might reimagine business as a force for good, for the regeneration of life. Read it and put its ideas into practice.”
Rob Hopkins, Time traveller and author of How to Fall in Love with the Future
“Game Changer makes a conversation that can so often feel technical, abstract and
inaccessible feel human and possible. You do not need an economics degree to enter this conversation. In fact, that is the point!
Jennifer Hinton’s game metaphor helps us see something fundamental: our economy is not simply a natural force that we have to live with. It is a system we have designed, and therefore a system we can redesign.
What I love most is that this book does not stop at telling us what is wrong. It asks what we could build instead: an economy organised around meeting needs, creating wellbeing and sustaining life, rather than endlessly extracting profit.
And importantly, this is not presented as a utopian fantasy. From Bangladesh to Bolivia to Croatia, people and organisations are already experimenting with different ways of doing things.
Many of us in the majority world have known for a long time that the dominant economy was not designed around our wellbeing. We have been creating our own answers, often quietly and often at the margins, all along. Game Changer helps bring these ideas into language that more of us can enter, question and make our own.
We do not have to accept the game we inherited. We can change the rules, change what we value, and build an economy that works for people and planet.
Let us change the game together! A game that is fun for all of us! With no upfront losers.”
Thobile Chittenden, Network Co-Lead at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll)
“By shifting the focus from making profit more sustainable to building an economy centered on social and ecological wellbeing, this book opens up important new space for economic thinking.”
François Denuit and Praachi Khera, Co-directors of NEEP (New Economies for
Eradicating Poverty)
“As it becomes clear to an increasing number of people that economic growth will halt either by design or disaster, this book is vital reading for anyone who wants to work toward true systemic change — in other words, the much-needed shift in society’s focus from ever-more to better. Hinton’s book lays out, with outstanding comprehensiveness, what a new economic design implies for government, markets, and companies.
Perhaps most importantly, Hinton places community alongside markets and the state,
restoring the vital role citizens (today most-often referred to as ‘consumers’ in economic
texts) have as uniquely capable stewards of our commons. Rebuilding the atrophied capacity of this third and oldest form of provisioning offers a path towards resilience in the coming years of societal and ecosystem destabilization. Yet this path’s destination is not a capitulation to grim necessity. The most wonderful aspect of a post-growth world is not the peace of mind that what we have now can last — although certainly that too. It is the rediscovery of our role as a keystone species in this web of life which we feel on a visceral level we are all part of, and the deeply joyful sense of fulfillment that comes from reclaiming our agency as co-creators of our common future.”
Gaya Herrington, Published author, executive advisor, and TED keynote speaker on
wellbeing economics and polycrisis resilience
“Jennifer Hinton offers an in-depth analysis of how issues like inequality, poverty and
environmental destruction are not problems that can be fixed, but inevitable consequences of the current rulebook of the game we call the Economy. The rules of this game have existential dimensions; they impact how we perceive the world and ourselves as humans.
Hinton does something important and rare when she shows a well-researched and pragmatic way towards a much healthier game that we can begin playing any day. “
Pella Thiel, Rights of nature advocate and founder of Embassy of the Baltic Sea
THE PRINT VERSION WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON!
You can read the book online below, DOWNLOAD it for free, or purchase a paperback copy at your local bookstore or online. Please see the list of resellers HERE.