The Bank of England is expressing significant concerns about Britain's "ageing and ailing workforce", harmonising to the government's tune of how the long-term sick are responsible for the UK economic challenges, and how "necessary" raising the State pension age is.
Those two songs have been a more or less constant refrain from various shades of UK governments since 1997 - almost 30years. Pretty much my whole life, and the entirety of my life as someone old enough to vote.
Of course, work is necessary. Countries have essential core services which require vast workforces to provide and administrate. Governments should be generating national income by exporting from the manufacturing, STEM, creative, and knowledge economy sectors, all of which require their own skilled and specialist workforces, and the workforce of their respective administrative and marketing functions. Continuous income, to cover the unavoidable payment lags in exports, is necessary for a stable economy; this comes from the retail and hospitality sectors, which demand a ready and reliable workforce on the floor, as well as some back office and marketing functions.
Those two songs have been a more or less constant refrain from various shades of UK governments since 1997 - almost 30years. Pretty much my whole life, and the entirety of my life as someone old enough to vote.
Of course, work is necessary. Countries have essential core services which require vast workforces to provide and administrate. Governments should be generating national income by exporting from the manufacturing, STEM, creative, and knowledge economy sectors, all of which require their own skilled and specialist workforces, and the workforce of their respective administrative and marketing functions. Continuous income, to cover the unavoidable payment lags in exports, is necessary for a stable economy; this comes from the retail and hospitality sectors, which demand a ready and reliable workforce on the floor, as well as some back office and marketing functions.
And it's not just national governments which benefit from a fully, reliably staffed economy, with workers who bring strong skills, specialist knowledge, flexibility, and genuine work ethic; work provides social opportunities which are increasingly hard to find elsewhere. These social opportunities have positive, and potentially even preventative, impacts on the health of society, including physical health, not just mental and emotional wellbeing.
And, of course, people having their own money, independent of government whims and priorities, is important for their own sense of being functional adults, their ability to identify and make good choices, in accordance with both their and their family's needs, and their individual personal values, and their financial security.
And, of course, people having their own money, independent of government whims and priorities, is important for their own sense of being functional adults, their ability to identify and make good choices, in accordance with both their and their family's needs, and their individual personal values, and their financial security.
While people increasingly feel that Universal Basic Income is not just desirable, but essential in the face of systemic barriers around age and health access to the workforce, this kind of provision requires both a strong export base of high-value tangible and intangible goods and services, and a genuinely compassionate government which views all of the people who make up its society as competent, committed, intelligent, and deserving of the ability to make their own, independent financial decisions, and to self-actualise. Keir Starmer's Labour government is not genuinely compassionate. They are not even capable of viewing everyone who lives in the UK as belonging to the UK - an attitude which extends to several demographics of British citizens, including those born to families who have never been anything other than British - much less viewing their citizenry as competent and deserving of the ability to self-actualise.
The previous Conservative government struggled with the same inability to see all of British society as belonging, competent, and deserving of self-actualisation. In the coalition government before them, this same Conservative refusal to see people as people dominated the working arrangement.
For over a decade, the majority of the British public has very definitely and very clearly not been viewed as intelligent, competent people with the right to self-actualise. This dismissal is a significant contributing factor to the rising trend of "mental health" being cited as a reason for long-term absence from the workforce; when people don't feel seen, they lose their sense of obligation to show up.
We see this on a micro level in schools and workplaces; the kids who don't bother, the colleagues who coast and show up when they feel like it, are often those who are either ignored or taken for granted by teachers and managers. They are the people whose work is never credited, whose efforts are always disparaged, who are never promoted or centred - they are treated like an irrelevance and an inconvenience, and so they internalise that it doesn't matter whether they're there or not - and most of us would rather be somewhere other than work or school.
People are not going to stop ageing.
The previous Conservative government struggled with the same inability to see all of British society as belonging, competent, and deserving of self-actualisation. In the coalition government before them, this same Conservative refusal to see people as people dominated the working arrangement.
For over a decade, the majority of the British public has very definitely and very clearly not been viewed as intelligent, competent people with the right to self-actualise. This dismissal is a significant contributing factor to the rising trend of "mental health" being cited as a reason for long-term absence from the workforce; when people don't feel seen, they lose their sense of obligation to show up.
We see this on a micro level in schools and workplaces; the kids who don't bother, the colleagues who coast and show up when they feel like it, are often those who are either ignored or taken for granted by teachers and managers. They are the people whose work is never credited, whose efforts are always disparaged, who are never promoted or centred - they are treated like an irrelevance and an inconvenience, and so they internalise that it doesn't matter whether they're there or not - and most of us would rather be somewhere other than work or school.
People are not going to stop ageing.
There are genuine disabilities which are strongly linked to air pollution, poor nutrition, and the stressors of population density and poor-quality housing - all of which the government has the ability to change for the better, which would benefit them by reducing the numbers of people out of the workforce owing to disability.
Further disabilities are caused by heavy manual work without the ability to rest sufficiently, excessive screen use, and excessive time spent sitting down; these are things employers can, and should be, addressing in their own practices, to improve the physical resilience of their workforce.
The UK isn't unique in having these economic panic attacks; collectively, the global north is facing the end of economic growth.
But growth can't end!
Everything ends.
Ending is natural, normal - and, despite the way it feels at the time, desirable. Without endings, we would have very few lessons of real and radical benefit.
Economic growth will end - either because it is allowed to do so organically, which ensures that something else can emerge in its place, or because it is forced to, by an economic crash - which nobody sane wants to see. In real terms, we still haven't recovered from the 2008 crash. Almost 20yrs later, we are still living in the landscape that forced endings inevitably create.
Economic growth can end, and it will - the government needs to take action to choose the form of the ending, rather than prevent the fact of it.
So, what comes after growth?
The paranoid delusion of "continual and eternal growth" has arisen because growth has become the sole metric by which the UK, and many other Western governments, measure the intangible concept of "success."
In order to move sustainably beyond growth, we need to identify new metrics, which give us genuine, actionable insights which can direct government policy, and which apply to all members of society.
Three metrics immediately suggest themselves:
. Health, including mental health, and which acknowledges and accommodates genuine and unavoidable disability and chronic illness
. Personal progression, which must be a lifelong commitment
. Social engagement, which should continue from the start of schooling to beyond retirement
The benefit of these metrics, as opposed to "growth", is that they recognise the achievements of those who, through no fault of their own, will never be counted when only economic growth is being considered. They also provide clear, actionable course indicators for government policy, something that "growth" only actually offers in theory.
Introducing a health metric forces a review of how British business recruits, welcomes, and supports older, disabled, and chronically ill workers.
Introducing a personal progress metric compels schools to recruit teachers who can actually engage their students, demands that employers invest in relevant training and personal development opportunities for their workforce, and fully support and sustainably enable the uptake of those opportunities, and requires that the Department for Work and Pensions allows personal choice in unpaid opportunities, and financially supports personal and professional development, potentially including entrepreneurship attempts.
Introducing a social engagement metric compels both schools and workforces to give equal priority to volunteering and to kinship support, which in turn facilitates exchange of lived experience, resulting in increased understanding between demographics in the UK, and greater social cohesion.
Importantly, none of these metrics shut down the possibility of economic growth; they simply decentre it, and refine peoples' thinking around it - which is likely to lead to a socially-led shift towards a genuinely sustainable, inclusive form and pace of economic growth.
British productivity has always been highest when people had more time to think. When time was being "wasted" with management and emerging leaders attending in-person residential seminars, taking them completely out of their businesses. When factories were only 24/7 if there was a genuine need for their output to be continuous. When shops, bars, and restaurants closed on Sundays and Bank Holidays. When 9am-5pm meant those hours, with no expectation to do more, unless overtime was being not just paid, but well paid. When factories closed for a set fortnight, and offices closed for lunch.
The reality is that, in pursuit of ill-defined "growth" as a metric, Britons are working longer, harder, for real-term lower pay - but less efficiently.
What should we be doing?
1. From the very beginning of mandated education, we should be centring knowledge, STEM, entrepreneurship, and innovation; AI is going to replace a lot of administrative jobs. A society where people feel impoverished, even if objective lensing says they are not, is a society where retail, tourism, and hospitality will all become occasional options, rather than a reliable form of central government revenue through taxation on profits, and local government revenue through business rates. Manufacturing has lost the ability to compete with emerging economies in South-East Asia. The way the care sector currently runs excludes many people with genuine disabilities. The UK's disjointed, inefficient, and expensive public transport, and car-centric infrastructure, makes it difficult for those who are unable to drive because of disability, or unable to afford a private vehicle, to have access to the full range of employment and opportunity.
Centring knowledge, rather than physical attendance at a workplace, and physical effort, means people can work from anywhere - including the bed their disability binds them to, the bedside of a dependent family member, a homeless shelter (providing it is properly funded so it can be suitably equipped), or whichever venue, country, or room of their house is most conducive to their way of focusing. It allows night owls, the chronically insomniac, parents, and those who have to attend regular medical appointments, which are exclusively scheduled during the daytime, to work during the night - after all, 10pm-6am is still eight hours, just as 9am-5pm is, but care commitments, some disabilities, and the UK's public transport system make it difficult for people to access work which requires on-site attendance on a night shift basis.
Increasingly, we are seeing that large businesses with a significant demand for labour and space are no longer viable. This means that the UK will need to replace the revenues these businesses have historically generated, whilst dealing with a reality in which fewer and fewer businesses have the appetite or means to pay the rents and rates for large premises, or to employ large workforces; the only way this can be achieved is through enabling everyone - including those without access to capital - to become capable entrepreneurs, with the skills and knowledge to run truly viable small, flexible, truly nimble businesses.
2. Volunteering should be a mandatory part of both education and employment. In education,it should give practical reinforcement of lessons, while in employment, it should provide a complete contrast to the work focus; for example, those in knowledge economies should volunteer in the care and rural sectors, those in care and rural sectors should volunteer with policy think tanks, disabled people should volunteer with architectural firms, men should volunteer with groups supporting pregnancy and women's health, women should volunteer with groups supporting men's mental health, faith groups should volunteer with humanist organisations, and humanist organisations should volunteer with faith groups. Young people should volunteer in elderly care, and social groups for the elderly, while elderly people should volunteer with youth groups. The wealthiest in society should volunteer with homeless organisations, and the homeless should volunteer with housing developers and in the finance sector.
This ensures a constant exchange of lived experience, ideas, and reality-checking, which helps promote social cohesion, reduces bigotry, prejudice, and intolerance, as people are seen as colleagues, rather than "people like that."
3. Paid time off in employment should firstly be extended to the self-employed, which could be funded through self-employed national insurance contributions, and secondarily extended for all workers to the same extent as school holidays - with the option for that extent of leave to be taken when individual workers prefer; so, rather than "give everyone the school holidays off" - which not everyone will need or want, and which is not sustainable for business, the suggestion is "give every worker 13 weeks' annual leave, with up to six weeks being able to be taken as a block, subject to a minimum 3months' notice." This enables people to properly and fully rest, which prevents burnout, reduces absenteeism, and improves employee resilience, and facilitates engagement with lifelong learning and personal development, which increases the skills, knowledge, and specialist competencies available in the UK workforce, which is necessary for national economic stability.
Centring knowledge, rather than physical attendance at a workplace, and physical effort, means people can work from anywhere - including the bed their disability binds them to, the bedside of a dependent family member, a homeless shelter (providing it is properly funded so it can be suitably equipped), or whichever venue, country, or room of their house is most conducive to their way of focusing. It allows night owls, the chronically insomniac, parents, and those who have to attend regular medical appointments, which are exclusively scheduled during the daytime, to work during the night - after all, 10pm-6am is still eight hours, just as 9am-5pm is, but care commitments, some disabilities, and the UK's public transport system make it difficult for people to access work which requires on-site attendance on a night shift basis.
Increasingly, we are seeing that large businesses with a significant demand for labour and space are no longer viable. This means that the UK will need to replace the revenues these businesses have historically generated, whilst dealing with a reality in which fewer and fewer businesses have the appetite or means to pay the rents and rates for large premises, or to employ large workforces; the only way this can be achieved is through enabling everyone - including those without access to capital - to become capable entrepreneurs, with the skills and knowledge to run truly viable small, flexible, truly nimble businesses.
2. Volunteering should be a mandatory part of both education and employment. In education,it should give practical reinforcement of lessons, while in employment, it should provide a complete contrast to the work focus; for example, those in knowledge economies should volunteer in the care and rural sectors, those in care and rural sectors should volunteer with policy think tanks, disabled people should volunteer with architectural firms, men should volunteer with groups supporting pregnancy and women's health, women should volunteer with groups supporting men's mental health, faith groups should volunteer with humanist organisations, and humanist organisations should volunteer with faith groups. Young people should volunteer in elderly care, and social groups for the elderly, while elderly people should volunteer with youth groups. The wealthiest in society should volunteer with homeless organisations, and the homeless should volunteer with housing developers and in the finance sector.
This ensures a constant exchange of lived experience, ideas, and reality-checking, which helps promote social cohesion, reduces bigotry, prejudice, and intolerance, as people are seen as colleagues, rather than "people like that."
3. Paid time off in employment should firstly be extended to the self-employed, which could be funded through self-employed national insurance contributions, and secondarily extended for all workers to the same extent as school holidays - with the option for that extent of leave to be taken when individual workers prefer; so, rather than "give everyone the school holidays off" - which not everyone will need or want, and which is not sustainable for business, the suggestion is "give every worker 13 weeks' annual leave, with up to six weeks being able to be taken as a block, subject to a minimum 3months' notice." This enables people to properly and fully rest, which prevents burnout, reduces absenteeism, and improves employee resilience, and facilitates engagement with lifelong learning and personal development, which increases the skills, knowledge, and specialist competencies available in the UK workforce, which is necessary for national economic stability.
4. We need to have a way to require parents to fully and co-operatively engage with an education system which prioritises and develops intelligence, creative thinking, and enhanced social engagement and social cognition, and to ensure the children of parents who resist this necessary shift in focus are still supported and enable to engage with a process which better fits them for the society we are going to end up living in. This is likely to be the most controversial aspect of the changes suggested here, but we need to accept that having children is not a "right", and that acting cohesively and inclusively to prevent unplanned pregnancies, which often derail academic and career achievement, and can result in lifelong reliance on State support, as well as impacting parental wellbeing, sometimes to the point of causing the breakdown of what had previously been a genuinely functional and mutually supportive relationship, is an essential aspect of effective governance. We need a way to reliably predict need for housing, social care, healthcare, etc, and that requires a lot more State involvement with peoples' attitudes around having children.
This isn't going to be an easy process - but nothing necessary is ever truly easy.
The sooner the groundwork of this change starts to be laid, the better; people don't like change, but once change begins, then effective and inclusive communication with all sectors of society, but prioritising the most significantly impacted, typically helps people understand and accept it.
We need grassroots, lived experience voices.
We need this change to be led by those with the least.
We need respect for all sectors and demographics of British society - including the ones we don't necessarily like or approve of.
And we need to let go of the delusion that only constant growth matters.
This isn't going to be an easy process - but nothing necessary is ever truly easy.
The sooner the groundwork of this change starts to be laid, the better; people don't like change, but once change begins, then effective and inclusive communication with all sectors of society, but prioritising the most significantly impacted, typically helps people understand and accept it.
We need grassroots, lived experience voices.
We need this change to be led by those with the least.
We need respect for all sectors and demographics of British society - including the ones we don't necessarily like or approve of.
And we need to let go of the delusion that only constant growth matters.
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