Chancellor Rachel Reeves said recently that economic growth is the Government’s most important mission. Growing the economy was more important than preventing climate change. Reeves’ priorities are completely conventional. Governments throughout the world are committed to ever greater wealth, even if it only gets to those who are already rich.
The obsession with growth achieved the status of an ideology many decades ago. It is axiomatic – that is to say, no evidence is required. Politicians who appear on our televisions and radios are almost never challenged when they say that any given policy will be good for growth. It is just assumed to be a Good Thing.
But there is a mass of evidence to suggest that, in countries that are already developed, further growth is not just unnecessary, it is damaging. Growth drives climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, overfishing, air and water pollution.
Let’s take a local example: Rotary Wood in Harrogate was planted by local people. It sits on land owned by Danone, a multinational company. Danone owns a company called Harrogate Spring Water. They want to expand their water bottling facility on part of Rotary Wood. Who will benefit from this expansion? Thousands more plastic bottles littering the countryside or going to landfill. Tons of water being driven to supermarkets up and down the country. The UK doesn’t need any more bottled water. The standard of drinking water in this country is high – we don’t really need bottled water at all (except when pipes burst). A few jobs will be created. There will be economic growth. But the only real beneficiaries will be the shareholders of Danone.
Nothing is safe from Ms Reeves’ growth addiction. The Labour government has announced that housebuilders and other “developers” will be able to build on protected sites if they pay money for enhancements elsewhere. This is the equivalent of burning a Rembrandt while promising to produce a new painting at some indefinable time in the future.
If Labour (and other Western governments) wanted to improve the lives of ordinary people, they should strive for more economic equality. There has been almost no increase in most people’s incomes since the banking crash of 2007. But the endless but undelivered promise of greater material wealth leaves people angry. They vote for populist right-wing parties and look for scapegoats – usually recent immigrants. This is happening all over Western Europe and the USA.
Growth and equality are inversely proportionate: the more you have of one, the less you need of the other. Egalitarian societies are less violent, healthier, and more trusting than unequal ones.[1]
Climate Action Leeds is running the Leeds Doughnut, named after Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. The book shows how we can meet our economic needs while staying within the natural boundaries of our only planet. A key feature of the theory is to be agnostic about growth.
[1] See The Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Or at https://equalitytrust.org.uk
