The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been doing the rounds of the television studios, trumpeting the mantra, “Growth growth growth”, after the fashion of Tony Blair who used to say “education education education”. Sir Tony immortalised several other soundbites; “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”; and, “Twenty four hours to save the NHS!” If such glib utterances tell us anything at all, perhaps it is that, of all people, politicians are least best placed to effect real change, “change” being another favoured buzz word of the current administration.
I don’t really get “growth”. Occasionally I make reference to a textbook of economics in an attempt to familiarise myself with the dismal science. Economic growth, I read, is the change in potential output of the economy shown by a shift to the right of the production possibility frontier. What does it mean when we say we need to “grow” the economy? I suppose it refers to an increase in some index of productivity, such as Gross Domestic Product. If you increase GDP, then you can increase national income. We need either to produce more goods or supply more services, or both. It is said that if we do not do this, if we do not “create wealth”, then we cannot afford to invest in public services, such as schools, hospitals, policing, public libraries, and so on. The business community often reminds us of this, rather sharply, by way of a reprimand.
But can wealth really be “created”? Is it not rather discovered, as a source available in nature, and then utilised? Coal, for example, made these islands very wealthy throughout the last 300 years. But coal, or any other fossil fuel, was not created; it was discovered, deep underground. It was, and for some remains, a source of energy. It can be neither created nor destroyed. It can be metamorphosed. For example, it can be turned into carbon dioxide which hangs around, and gradually increases the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere. You might argue that the concept of wealth creation is in defiance of the First Law of Thermodynamics.
People who are seriously interested in wealth want to maximise income and minimise expenditure. So they try to create a system that generates wealth whilst running on a shoestring. It is much better for example, to run a service with robots rather than human beings, because robots do not need to be paid. Therefore it would be much better if a public service were entirely automated. This is what lies behind these dismal experiences we have all had, of attempting to contact a company, being bombarded with endless menus requiring us repeatedly to press digits on our cell phone key pad, and then being interviewed by a robot who cannot understand our regional accent. The great entrepreneurial movers and shakers are trying to create a perpetual motion machine, likely unaware that they are in defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, therefore doomed to failure.
Yet still, in search of growth, government ministers traipse across the globe looking to make trade deals. The Chancellor visited China shortly after taking office, and made a deal worth a few modest millions. It was an awkward time for her to depart from the UK because the markets were very jumpy about something or other. She was criticised for abandoning her post during a crisis, but she defended herself by re-emphasising the need for growth. For a time, her coat seemed to be on a shoogly peg. But the PM affirmed his full confidence in his Chancellor. I’m not sure that helped. Sometimes people who have the full confidence of the PM are gone by lunchtime. Some people refer to the first ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer in British history as “Rachel from Accounts”. It is a classic put-down, misogyny disguised as “banter”.
Today, unusually, the PM is attending a meeting of the European Council, looking for closer ties, short of membership, with the EU. Meanwhile Mr Trump has imposed tariffs of 25% on his nearest neighbours, Mexico and Canada, and 10% on China. He is looking to do the same with the EU, and he hasn’t quite made his mind up about the UK. Apparently Sir Keir was “very nice” on the telephone. But I have a notion that if there is going to be a trade war, the UK will have to decide whether to be close to Europe, or close to the US. It will have to be one or the other. Meanwhile Mr Trump has his eye on Canada as the 51st US state. Next stop, Greenland. He is certainly intent on growing the US economy.
But surely growth, thermodynamically, and biologically, is unsustainable. We are like bacteria on a plate of agar of finite dimensions. We feed on the agar, multiply exponentially, and produce a toxic waste product, for example, alcohol. If we continue to consume and to multiply, we will perish in a toxic environment that can no longer support life. The government should be focusing its attention on nurturing a stable and sustainable environment. But no. The government wants to build a third runway at Heathrow. The UK will be a hub. It “doubles down” on its devotion to growth, while always on the lookout for some Deus ex Machina that will somehow defy the second law of thermodynamics, and annul the ever increasing entropy of the universe. The latest magic bullet is Artificial Intelligence. AI is the Next Big Thing. If we don’t invest heavily in AI, if we don’t become “world leaders”, then we will sink without trace.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree…
jamescalumcampbell 