The economic turmoil of recent years has seen a renewed focus on
Britain’s failure to grow. A new essay by CPS Director Robert
Colvile sets out how this is a much longer-term problem than we
think - that the growth ceiling of the British economy has been
getting lower and lower for decades, driven in part by a failure
by politicians and CEOs to defend the need for it.
'The Morality of Growth'
argues that the growing belief in parts of the left that
capitalism and its obsession with growth are a cancer on the
planet, while not readily adopted by mainstream voices, is
seeping into political and business spheres. The result is a
culture in which our leaders pay lip service to growth but are
not willing to do what it takes to deliver. He argues that we
should prioritise growth as something that is not just
economically necessary but morally virtuous.
In the paper Colvile writes that the 'degrowth' movement is 'the
ultimate example of white privilege', with those who have mostly
never known anything but extraordinary comforts of our modern
world telling billions across the world that their ambitions for
a better life don’t actually matter. He goes on to say that a
society without growth is 'politically far more fragile',
especially as younger people who lose hope of benefiting from the
compounding prosperity experienced by their parents and
grandparents.
Robert Colvile, CPS Director and author of the essay,
said:
'Malnutrition, poverty, infant mortality, and all other indices
of deprivation have plummeted in recent decades as a direct
result of economic growth. It is an overwhelming good. But in
Britain, GDP growth per capita has fallen in every decade since
the 1980s. Indeed, it is precisely because there has not been as
much cake to go round that we fixate on the size of the portions.
'Politicians from both left and right agree that growth is vital.
But in all too many areas, the priority is not making people's
lives better, but a performative demonstration that you are on
the side of righteousness. If we want to solve Britain's
problems, both MPs and business leaders need to treat growth as a
moral good in and of itself - and do a far better job of
explaining to people why it matters.'
NOTES TO EDITORS
-
'The Morality of Growth' by Robert Colvile is available to
download here.
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Robert Colvile is Director of the CPS and Editor-in-Chief of
CapX, and was one of the co-authors of the 2019 Conservative
Party manifesto.
