End of the road for economic growth in the UK?
The UK government - and most Western European governments - hyperfixate on economic growth as a measure of political success: If growth is strong, the claim goes, then the government of the day are doing things right, regardless of how popular their policies are with the public. If growth slows, the government has clearly made the wrong decision, and needs to alter course, and prove that they deserve to be in charge.
This is something that has become a sacred truth in government. "This will destroy growth!" "This risks crashing UK growth prospects!" have become ever-more aggressive reactions to policy suggestions from opposing parties, or individual politicians. Initially, I assumed this was deliberate fear-mongering; because the public associates "economic growth" with "my individual life improving, me as an individual having more money for less work, and everything getting better in the ways I want it to", politicians were manipulating public sentiment to win popular regard, which translates to votes come election time.
However, I now have a different perspective; while I still absolutely believe politicians are deliberately manipulating the public, because humans essentially always manipulate each other in some way - and if you think you don't, you may be like me - manipulating people through unfiltered straightforwardness...consider just how effective that's going to be as people increasingly become frustrated with artifice, filters, and social media personas - I've come to realise they actually believe that economic growth = they've consciously identified and made the best possible decision.
Economic growth doesn't mean you're "getting it right" - because economics is not working with a logical system. Many economists can't quite accept that the public is mostly deeply illogical - why else would labubus, POGs, and "I survived quarantine" t-shirts be quite as popular as they are? - because economic theory tells us that people are logical, and that whatever choices they make about what they spend their money on will carry a thread of sense and logic through them, meaning that future demand can be readily predicted, and promptly supplied. People, however, are beautifully illogical; we buy things that have no practical use or value at all because they inspire our creativity, because they bring out our playfulness, or because they spark positive associations. We will spend money on convenience, then spend more money on undoing the negative physical impacts of never going out of our way to get anything we need or want. We would rather pay for a gym membership and buy a Roomba than spend 30mins a day walking round with a manual vacuum cleaner, then going for a run to clear the dust from our lungs. We'll spend hundreds of pounds to tackle landscapes that generations of rural labourers and children have been climbing barefoot, and in the most basic everyday clothing.
The illogic of the public in relation to its spending on goods and services has fuelled a lot of growth; however, everything has an end point, and illogic reaches its end sooner, purely by its nature.
For over 30years, the UK economy has essentially been fuelled by illogic, courtesy of the death of British manufacturing, and the increase in social isolation, which is packaged up and sold to us as "individual quirkery".
Illogic is ending, because the easy target for climate change is always the things that mean nothing to the commentators, but brings other people joy, and because people have been trained to believe they can't trust themselves to identify the best way to improve their own situations, and every financial guru will aggressively demand that you never spend a single penny on anything that doesn't "literally keep you alive!" - which demands the death of illogic. Professional declutterers insist that your freely-gathered rock, pine cone, and seashell display is "the reason you feel so stressed out and on edge! Also, it's attracting dust, which is literally killing you!" (And I'm side-eyeing that as someone who has an actual dust allergy - I have to wear a face mask when I'm cleaning my house, and take an anti-histamine after; I also have to clean literally every day in order to not become ill...)
But what are the signs that economic growth is also ending?
. Everything feels 'samey'
. Endless subscription models
. Even expensive items don't last/don't work well
. Nothing sparks positive feelings/associations
The UK government - and most Western European governments - hyperfixate on economic growth as a measure of political success: If growth is strong, the claim goes, then the government of the day are doing things right, regardless of how popular their policies are with the public. If growth slows, the government has clearly made the wrong decision, and needs to alter course, and prove that they deserve to be in charge.
This is something that has become a sacred truth in government. "This will destroy growth!" "This risks crashing UK growth prospects!" have become ever-more aggressive reactions to policy suggestions from opposing parties, or individual politicians. Initially, I assumed this was deliberate fear-mongering; because the public associates "economic growth" with "my individual life improving, me as an individual having more money for less work, and everything getting better in the ways I want it to", politicians were manipulating public sentiment to win popular regard, which translates to votes come election time.
However, I now have a different perspective; while I still absolutely believe politicians are deliberately manipulating the public, because humans essentially always manipulate each other in some way - and if you think you don't, you may be like me - manipulating people through unfiltered straightforwardness...consider just how effective that's going to be as people increasingly become frustrated with artifice, filters, and social media personas - I've come to realise they actually believe that economic growth = they've consciously identified and made the best possible decision.
Economic growth doesn't mean you're "getting it right" - because economics is not working with a logical system. Many economists can't quite accept that the public is mostly deeply illogical - why else would labubus, POGs, and "I survived quarantine" t-shirts be quite as popular as they are? - because economic theory tells us that people are logical, and that whatever choices they make about what they spend their money on will carry a thread of sense and logic through them, meaning that future demand can be readily predicted, and promptly supplied. People, however, are beautifully illogical; we buy things that have no practical use or value at all because they inspire our creativity, because they bring out our playfulness, or because they spark positive associations. We will spend money on convenience, then spend more money on undoing the negative physical impacts of never going out of our way to get anything we need or want. We would rather pay for a gym membership and buy a Roomba than spend 30mins a day walking round with a manual vacuum cleaner, then going for a run to clear the dust from our lungs. We'll spend hundreds of pounds to tackle landscapes that generations of rural labourers and children have been climbing barefoot, and in the most basic everyday clothing.
The illogic of the public in relation to its spending on goods and services has fuelled a lot of growth; however, everything has an end point, and illogic reaches its end sooner, purely by its nature.
For over 30years, the UK economy has essentially been fuelled by illogic, courtesy of the death of British manufacturing, and the increase in social isolation, which is packaged up and sold to us as "individual quirkery".
Illogic is ending, because the easy target for climate change is always the things that mean nothing to the commentators, but brings other people joy, and because people have been trained to believe they can't trust themselves to identify the best way to improve their own situations, and every financial guru will aggressively demand that you never spend a single penny on anything that doesn't "literally keep you alive!" - which demands the death of illogic. Professional declutterers insist that your freely-gathered rock, pine cone, and seashell display is "the reason you feel so stressed out and on edge! Also, it's attracting dust, which is literally killing you!" (And I'm side-eyeing that as someone who has an actual dust allergy - I have to wear a face mask when I'm cleaning my house, and take an anti-histamine after; I also have to clean literally every day in order to not become ill...)
But what are the signs that economic growth is also ending?
. Everything feels 'samey'
. Endless subscription models
. Even expensive items don't last/don't work well
. Nothing sparks positive feelings/associations
. We resent the things that are actual necessities
Recognise anything?
Growth is supposed to be innovative.
Growth should bring us entirely new goods and services, not just higher prices.
Another, economics-specific, sign that growth is reaching its end point is that public goods are no longer the dominant drivers of revenue; instead, they've been replaced by public bads; public bads are things people will pay to avoid. In the UK right now, the dominant "public bad" is inconvenience - which has stretched far beyond its original remit, and now encompasses core life skills, such as cooking. ("Cooking at home" does not have to mean "creating a Michelin-star menu every night." A salad is a "home-prepared meal." Crackers, cheese, chorizo, and olives is tapas at home. Home-made mac and cheese is as simple as melting grated cheese in white sauce (yes, you can buy pre-made sauce!), and cooking pasta in the resulting roux (no, you do not have to make pasta from scratch - unless you want to!)
Public bads do not provide long-term economic viability, because, eventually, people will get to a point where they decide that they'd rather deal with the "hassle", and have some more money - and they stop paying for the public bads. The UK cost of living crisis is very much hastening that day. (The cost of living seems to be the only thing that trickles down - just yesterday, the 85p wet wipes I buy from my corner shop had gone up to 89p...)
The end of economic growth doesn't mean the end of economic wellbeing.
Rather than listening to the economists and politicians who frenetically fixate on how endless growth is the only way an economy can be healthy, relate economic health to human health; the definition of reaching adulthood is that humans, animals, and plants pretty much stop growing. If we got taller every four months, we'd likely be diagnosed with a disease of some kind. The mega fauna died out because their size prevented them from adapting to a changing environment.
At some point, growth has to yield to stability.
Stability is not failure - it's safety. It's space to innovate. It's the foundation of community.
We've reached the end of growth - and our politicians and economists need to accept that, step up, and teach us how to live in stability.
Growth is supposed to be innovative.
Growth should bring us entirely new goods and services, not just higher prices.
Another, economics-specific, sign that growth is reaching its end point is that public goods are no longer the dominant drivers of revenue; instead, they've been replaced by public bads; public bads are things people will pay to avoid. In the UK right now, the dominant "public bad" is inconvenience - which has stretched far beyond its original remit, and now encompasses core life skills, such as cooking. ("Cooking at home" does not have to mean "creating a Michelin-star menu every night." A salad is a "home-prepared meal." Crackers, cheese, chorizo, and olives is tapas at home. Home-made mac and cheese is as simple as melting grated cheese in white sauce (yes, you can buy pre-made sauce!), and cooking pasta in the resulting roux (no, you do not have to make pasta from scratch - unless you want to!)
Public bads do not provide long-term economic viability, because, eventually, people will get to a point where they decide that they'd rather deal with the "hassle", and have some more money - and they stop paying for the public bads. The UK cost of living crisis is very much hastening that day. (The cost of living seems to be the only thing that trickles down - just yesterday, the 85p wet wipes I buy from my corner shop had gone up to 89p...)
The end of economic growth doesn't mean the end of economic wellbeing.
Rather than listening to the economists and politicians who frenetically fixate on how endless growth is the only way an economy can be healthy, relate economic health to human health; the definition of reaching adulthood is that humans, animals, and plants pretty much stop growing. If we got taller every four months, we'd likely be diagnosed with a disease of some kind. The mega fauna died out because their size prevented them from adapting to a changing environment.
At some point, growth has to yield to stability.
Stability is not failure - it's safety. It's space to innovate. It's the foundation of community.
We've reached the end of growth - and our politicians and economists need to accept that, step up, and teach us how to live in stability.
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