Going beyond WEIRD for a thriving ocean economy

Speaker: Dr. Rashid Sumaila, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs

Conventional economics in its mainstream and business-oriented form, has too often been guided by a narrow logic of short-term profit maximization, quarterly returns, and the relentless extraction of value from nature. Dr. Sumaila argues that this model, which may be described as WEIRD economics, shaped by assumptions rooted in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies, is not enough to achieve regenerative ocean economies worldwide. Dr. Sumaila argues that the problem is not economic theory itself, but the form of economics that has become dominant, where success is measured mainly by immediate financial gain, living systems are treated as inputs, or commodities rather than as the ecological foundations of human wellbeing. In the case of the ocean, this logic has contributed to the overexploitation of fish stocks, the degradation of marine habitats, and the normalization of practices that undermine long-term resilience, e.g., bottom trawling. Here, Dr. Sumaila suggests a non-WEIRED economic approach based on the Infinity Fish concept, which imagines a world in which fish and fisheries are governed not as exhaustible targets of extraction, but as renewable sources of nourishment, livelihoods, culture, and ecological continuity. Infinity Fish is a call to recognize that, under wise stewardship, living marine resources can continue generating benefits across generations. He argues for the rise in non-WEIRD economics and introduce the concept of Usefulness Value Economics.