Growth is not the answer to inequality
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our politicians focused on things that matter, like the kind of society we want to live in, instead of squabbling over TV debates and “empty chairs”? Why couldn’t they be a bit more like actor Michael Sheen, for instance, whose barnstorming defence of public values went viral after he turned out for a rain-soaked St David’s Day rally in support of the NHS?
The dilemma of growth: prosperity vs economic expansion
Rethinking prosperity is a vital task because our prevailing vision of the good life – and the economics intended to deliver it – have both come badly unstuck. Financial markets are unstable; inequality is rising; and despite the 500,000 or so people who took to the streets before Tuesday’s UN Climate Summit in New York, tackling climate change still faces a “frustrating lack of progress”. If this were not enough, the proposition that more is always better has signally failed to deliver, particularly in the affluent west. But questioning these values is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries.
New economic model needed not relentless consumer demand
It’s four years since my book, Prosperity without Growth, first appeared in English but the world already seems like a different place. One of the most obvious differences is that the conventional vision of social progress as a paradise of endless growth has come under increasing scrutiny: not just from those who doubt its sustainability or question its desirability, but also from those wondering where on earth economic growth is going to come from in the wake of the worst financial crisis in 80 years. The question that once could not be asked now regularly haunts the media: is it conceivable that economic growth will not after all deliver lasting prosperity?
