The price of growth

Next door to you?

On the day that we have heard that the country is not, as yet,  declining into a third, historically unprecedented, recession, it is perhaps worth thinking about the Coalition Government’s attitude to growth.

I personally believe that it is very hard for government action alone to stimulate growth in the economy for anything but a short period.  However, given the current dire financial state of the nation’s finances, it is not a surprise that growth has become something of an obsession with ministers, and indeed is colouring much, perhaps too much, of their policy making.

Thus we read that a government advisor has stated today that it would be a good thing for stay-at-home mothers to go out to work because it would be ‘good for the economy’.   Additionally, the Government was, until it was forced into a welcome rethink, prepared to unleash mayhem between neighbours by allowing large extensions to be built without consultation or permission.  The aim we were told was to stimulate the building industry.

These policies reveal that the Government is setting too much store by economic growth, and giving too little thought to other factors.  Forcing babies into nurseries and allowing anti-social carbuncles to be appended to the rear of housing both have their own cost. 

Perhaps this is not something that can be measured in terms of GDP, but there is a social cost that needs to  be balanced against purely economic advantage.