Towards a Meaningful Economy: Seven Institutional Transitions from Maximisation to Satisficing

Abstract

Economic development has generated major gains in productivity, technological capability and material prosperity, while also intensifying ecological pressures, unequal value distribution and the separation of financial performance from social contribution. This conceptual article develops the Meaningful Economy as an integrative framework for redirecting economic activity towards human flourishing, ecological viability and value for stakeholders. It uses a problem-oriented integrative synthesis spanning ecological and institutional economics, the capability approach, the sociology of work, stakeholder theory, humanistic management, financialisation, corporate governance and social accounting. The analysis identifies seven institutional transitions: from indefinite growth to sufficient well-being; from the exploitation of nature to ecological balance; from means to human ends; from financial profit to value for stakeholders; from short-termism to legacy; from meritocracy to inclusive capacity; and from one-dimensional maximisation to balanced governance. Three cross-cutting mechanisms—people-centred work and technology, socially embedded finance and stakeholderoriented social accounting—connect these principles to organisational practice. The framework’s central contribution is a principle of systemic viability grounded in satisficing: institutions should maintain several essential economic, social and ecological conditions rather than maximise a single metric at the expense of the system that sustains it. The Meaningful Economy therefore does not reject markets, firms, technology, finance or profitability; it repositions them as instruments whose legitimacy depends on the quality, distribution and durability of the value they create.