In October 2022, the new Conservative government is in turmoil, unpopular and divided. While its members clash over economic policy, polls suggest Labour will comprehensively win the next election. But one thing both parties, and apparently most people in Britain, firmly agree on is this: we need growth.

What does that mean?

Covid and Net Zero

In 2020, we were hit by Covid19. In 2021, the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was formed ahead of COP26, and the international banking community fell over itself in setting Net Zero by 2050 targets for its customers – most of the global economy. In combination, Covid and Net Zero created a sense that the world needed a fresh start – that we needed to “grow back better”.

Over the course of 2022, as the perceived threat of Covid has receded – and our fear has switched to potential war with Russia – the vision of growing back better appears likewise to have faded. Growth is re-assuming its tired old meaning: more consumer spending, more use of primary resources, more roads, more car and plane travel, more energy consumption, more support for traditional jobs amidst a resurgence of nationalism (“our workers”, “our families”, “our farmers”). The fact that an extrapolation of historical growth is probably incompatible with the sustained existence of eight billion humans and other life forms commands little public attention as we grapple with short-term worries. As Keynes, who was childless, might have said on the subject: in the long run, we’re all dead.

Growing back better

Various economists have, over the last couple of decades, called into question the assumption that growth is a priori desirable. Wondering about how exponential growth is possible on a finite planet isn’t exactly original – one thinks of The Club of Rome expressing concern about finite resources fifty years ago, Thomas Malthus expressing concern about population growth two hundred years ago, and even, two thousand years ago, ancient Greeks worrying about food supply … Though such doubts have seldom been mainstream, in recent years tangible climate breakdown has given them a new lease of life.

But the growth instinct appears to be so primeval that any theory which says “let’s not” gets relegated to fringe activism. More psychologically acceptable is the ‘circular economy’ idea which claims we can have economic growth and sustainable use of resources, without double-counting the cake. Re-use, recycle, repair goes the mantra … though I personally think its proponents don’t adequately explain where all the energy is going to come from, or how all the related greenhouse gases will be suppressed.

We are in desperate need of visionary people in power to bring a post-Covid fresh start into focus for all of us. And it needs to be much more fundamental than re-use, recycle, repair. We need a radical reform of our way of life if we are going to survive in the long-term (i.e. future generations). The psychological problem here is that ‘radical reform’ is generally couched in terms of things we should not be doing (flying, driving, eating meat, buying clothes, etc.), which smacks of do-goodism and hypocrisy and turns most people off.

Radical reform

So here is a key question:

• How can radical reform be presented in positive terms, as non-judgemental and compelling advocacy for a better and happier way of life?

And here are some tentative answers, which I’m sure could be better expressed:

• We can be very happy without owning lots of stuff. (An unconvincing objection to this point of view is that if we spend less on possessions and are materially poorer, we will have less tax revenue for the NHS and public services. No, because as a society we can choose to spend a greater proportion of our wealth on them if we have the collective will.)
• Our economy can be largely, if not entirely, green: we can focus on green energy; repairing our network infrastructure and making it hydrogen-ready; re-furbishing our buildings where we can – and re-building where we can’t – to make them more sustainable; building a network of cycle paths and co-ordinated public transport as well as a network of charging points for EVs; improving our drainage and sewage systems; creating new parks and public facilities; re-wilding the countryside and restoring peat bogs
• We can take more advantage of electronic communications to work flexibly, more often from home, and cut out most business travel
• We can live more communally – reducing loneliness – either in smaller houses or ones with higher occupancy, sharing possessions with our neighbours rather than always insisting on individual ownership, car-pooling, expanding participation in local clubs (sports, arts, music, etc.)
• We can enjoy greener holidays by making the journey a feature of the holiday (e.g. travelling by train, boat, or cycling); we may soon be able to experience the relative tranquillity of travelling on an airship (Air Nostrum is planning to have helium-filled airships in operation, at least in Spain, within a few years); we can enjoy some of Europe’s best beaches here in Britain; and to anyone who regards the latter suggestion as parochial, I would say gone are the days when it was necessary to travel to a place to find out about it
• Future diets may be transformed and enriched by the availability of perennial grains and microbial proteins, which may well turn out to be healthier than current meat and dairy, as well as more sustainable

To do it justice, our education system could usefully put this key question centre stage; and build a coherent and comprehensive response to it from initial and fragmentary answers such as these.