In 1848 John Stuart Mill wrote this:
I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on…I know not why it should be a matter of congratulation that persons who are already richer than anyone needs to be, should have doubled their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth…It is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object.
A century and a half later – after an 800 per cent rise in real per capita incomes – Tony Blair begins a speech thus:
I want to talk today about the central purpose of New Labour – which is to increase personal prosperity.
What have we learned in the 150 years since Mill to justify increased prosperity being any government’s central purpose?
One thing we’ve learned is that our wants increase as our means do – that we’re stuck on a hedonic treadmill, in which more is never enough.
This, though, cannot be a justification for wanting more prosperity. It’s a reason for thinking of how we might get off the hedonic treadmill.
Indeed, one thing we know now is that Mill was spot on. There’s abundant research – inspired by Richard Easterlin – showing that economic growth doesn’t make us much better off. Mr Blair’s implication that prosperity and well-being are coterminous is just wrong. Andrew Oswald has summarized the evidence thus:
In industrialized countries, well-being appears to rise as real national income grows. But the rise is so small as to be sometimes almost undetectable…In a country that is already rich, policy aimed at raising economic growth may be of comparatively little value.
Why then does New Labour have increasing prosperity as its central purpose? One possibility of course is that it is ignorant of the research. Cynics might consider other possibilities:
1. Economic growth tends to happen anyway over time. By claiming to have growth as an objective, governments can claim spurious credit for this. At a time when the legitimacy of the managerialist state is in question, this is helpful.
2. Growth brings in tax revenues. This allows governments to boast of increasing spending on public services without having to raise tax rates.
3. Economic growth is something clearly definable. Other desirable ideals – liberty, justice, civilization – are harder to define. A government that pursues growth rather than these ideals therefore avoids the problem of having to define moral terms, and so avoids drawing attention to its inability to discuss ethics rationally.
4. It promotes a dependency culture. If sensible people want more money - and I can just about imagine that some might - they work harder or change jobs. Maybe new Labour wants to eliminate this culture of self-reliance, and encourage us instead to look to government for everything we need. (Note here that Mr Blair isn’t merely promising to create the conditions in which people can achieve prosperity if they want it – which would be reasonable – but that he’s apparently aiming to increase it directly.)
Whatever the reason, I personally think it’s rather pathetic that a political party in a supposedly advanced country can have increased prosperity as a “central purpose.”
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