Courtesy of bbc.co.uk
The UK economy is in recession, for the first time since I vaguely understood the concept (aged 11 – tragic). Since the 1990s we’ve generally been in economic growth territory. And now the Arthur Dents of the world are chiming as one voice; this is it. Recession. We’re going to die.
Well, we aren’t. Things will be tough – undoubtedly. No more cheap flights for a quick weekend in Prague. No more vast TVs bought on credit. And those most exposed to debt and mortgage frailty will be really badly hit – repossessions and job losses will also be the order of the day, especially for those in the service sector (hands up if you work in finance and can’t help but be slightly concerned!). But for the majority it’ll just be a matter of reigning in spending and focussing on what really matters.
People say religion is dead – even as I type there is a rather amusing campaign by ‘atheists’ on the Guardian website to sponsor a series of adverts on London Buses stating “there is probably no God, no stop worrying and enjoy your life” (all for another time – as it Christians are a truly miserable bunch, or as if Muslims don’t have a good time at Eid, or the Hindus on Divali . . .) But as GK Chesterton said – when people stop believing in God, it isn’t that they believe in nothing, but rather that they believe in anything. From my perspective, the biggest idol of our times, who draws worship and devotion globally is the God of economic growth.
As an indicator of welfare, it is deeply, deeply flawed. GDP is an aggregate statistic of all income, expenditure and production in a country. It tallies everything – even those things which put strain on society. So a company pollutes a river and has to pay for clean up costs – this is counted in the ‘plus’ side of the equation of GDP. Activities with massive externalities such as car driving are all ‘pluses’ – insurance payments, fuel costs, all pluses on GDP, but how many people truly enjoy their daily commute? How much of GDP was based on the growth of ultimately toxic financial derivatives products? Well, a crude guess would be roughly how much GDP fell last quarter. Then there is all that GDP doesn’t account for – voluntary care workers, home-makers, artisans, social amenity etc. All on the assumption that a growth in income must all automatically equal a growth in welfare.
We’ve seen that assumption blown into a million pieces in recent weeks. A rising tide might just about feasibly float all ships, but the smallest, most vulnerable craft are the first to smash into the rocks when the tide flows out. The total average figure of GDP per capita masks the inequality between the richest and the poorest also – any society with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates in it will necessarily skew the average statistics.
The problem is that our growth – the scale of the human subsystem called the economy - has got so big, it is pushing up against its bio-physical limits. What we need now is not growth but development – not just a bigger output, but a more effective use of existing resources. Technology has a key role in all this – but the right kind of technology. The oil companies are talking about extracting oil from the oil shale in the US – freezing the area round the deposit to -200 and heating the area in the middle to 400 degrees. Incredible technology – but just a means out expanding the throughput of human endeavour. What we need is not ‘bigger jaws, but a better digestive system’!
Recession is not the end of society; it marks a shift in existing paradigms. Markets go through corrections. It just so happens that this one may be particularly nasty, cause by the sheer scale of the toxic assets being offloaded by the banks. Your life as you have known it may be changing, but this isn’t the end. There will be an upturn. Its my hope and prayer that we use this opportunity to create the kind of regional and global framework we need to deliver the quality of growth required to deal with poverty, peak oil and climate change.
1 Thessalonians 4:11 (New International Version)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
11Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you,
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