politics: May 2008 Archives

Brown has two fundamental problems. First, he's Scottish. That in itself is no bad thing, but when you have a queazy English plebiscite to muster, being otherly does not go in your favour. When people are unsure of your credentials, being different doesn't swing them in your favour. His other problem is his lack of charisma. Thatcher and Blair had it. Major didn't. Brown is a private looking man with a serious agenda, and schmoozing, smiling, grinning and fawning to the crowd just aint his bag. Aside from his penchant for parternalistic statism, he's a competent politician but, like Major, is facing a charismatic, well spoken, well dressed Englishman with facsimile economic policies. And also like Major, the crowd, like schoolkids with a sensitive student teacher, can smell fear and are keen to make use of it. Teflon Tony was worn down out of office. Mr Brown will be hounded out.

More significant than that of the early 1990s. What I predict is this is the beginning of the end of the last 60 years of 4% growth per annum. Not that we won't have growth, but we will experience around 1% instead of 4% per annum. That's a significant change of pace when you consider it translated into pay. 1% pay rise is significantly different (psychologically) from a 4% one.

Here's my reasoning: the last 60 years growth have been based on the assumption of plentiful and cheap natural resources such as oil, metals, crops, fuel, fish - you name it, it's scarcer and in more demand and therefore more costly than before. Many of these resources are diminishing - we're almost certainly at or beyond peak oil, for instance - whilst demand from emerging economies such as India and China is adding to the acceleration in demand in emerged economies. Add to that the shrinking workforce and growing old age pensioners, which is already happening in some parts of Europe and will rapidly be happening here, and you have rising underlying costs. And they are rising irreversably for the next couple of decades, at least.

Now this doesn't mean anything should be done. In fact, it's pretty clear nothing can be done, other than to expect slower growth of our standard of living. Which, might, tenuously, lead into thoughts of what is our standard of living and how do we measure it beyond material wealth. Kids on sink estates in England feel they've got the shitty end of the stick, but materially they have massive advantage over their Malawian counterparts. And, providing it's not a drought year, generally, the kid in Malawi has a better standard of living, in my limited experience. They are happier, better adjusted, more pleasant, inquisitive and able to enjoy the moment.

Just as Aldous Huxley said that morality is dependent on some basic material wealth, beyond that absolute amount of material wealth there's a welter of ways in which our standard of living can and should be considered. As we enter an era where fast material gains become scarcer would could, as people - not states - consider, adjust, improve, perfect our non-material lives.