The Guardian reports this morning that:
Spending extra cash on mental health services would boost economic growth and improve the nation's well-being more than building new roads, according to an academic analysis.
They added:
The report from the London School of Economics (LSE) argues that a rethink is needed inside Whitehall about how to approach spending decisions, with more focus on how the money actually improves people's lives, particularly in terms of wellbeing.
Researchers assessed the cost-benefit ratio of policies across a range of departments in a drive to convince Rachel Reeves she should downgrade costly road projects such as the Lower Thames Crossing in favour of putting more cash into health, education and skills to boost to the economy.
I warmly welcome this finding. I welcome even more the fact that the question was asked.
I am increasingly convinced that beyond a certain point - which is not by any means reached by everyone in the UK at present, motivating my concerns about poverty - well-being is not necessarily improved by increased material consumption. It may even be harmed by it. And when it is well known that things like increased road building solve no known transport problem now but do instead simply encourage more carbon and other waste production, this conclusion can easily be extended to a macro level, as this study has done.
Again, noting the point on poverty, the focus on excess consumption, which drives so much of supposed 'growth' in our economy, is often going to be destructive of well-being in that case.
I like to use the word 'cumber' to describe what excessive consumption produces. The word can be found embedded in others like 'encumber' or 'cumbersome' but is now rarely used in itself. That is a shame because it means a hindrance, obstruction, or burden.
When walking by the river, noting those going by in their expensive boats, I often think of those craft as cumber. I cannot imagine how they can, with all the hassle they create for the owners and the noise they surround their occupants with when moving, deliver greater well-being for those on board than I can enjoy walking on the riverbank, almost costlessly and so quietly I can actually hear the birds singing and smell the countryside, rather than engine fumes.
The obsession with cars as status symbols within our society is much the same: most of that is driven by the desire for cumber that impedes well-being.
There are many other examples, of course.
And I am sure LSE is right: if we focussed on well-being and not necessarily on vanity projects for politicians that create cumber for our society we might well be better off now.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Agree.
Ardennes, yesterday, (sunny) bike ride (on quiet roads), dip in a river by a weir (nobody around – cold clear water like glass) and a beer @ a cafe next to a cycle route (old railway line). Does not get any better than that. “Things” fade into insignificance.
Agreed
It’s a feature, not a bug. Austerity is a tool to discipline the worker, not an economic theory.
Recessions are good for most capitalists. After 2008, it managed to ‘scare’ most workers so no one could push on for a pay rise.
Precarity of workers is considered to be essential for capitalism to work. If people were too comfortable, they would become ‘lazy.’
The one time in the last 15 years when Labour had a bit of power, was during the pandemic. The Labour market was tight for a multitude of reasons, but it allowed some to push for better pay and working conditions.
If I were really cynical (and I am), I would suggest that interest rate rises were to cause a recession to discipline the workers once again, make their lives precarious.
Then what happened? Capital needed a way to deepen the pool of Labour they could draw on. The result was the highest levels of migration seen over two years. Business demanded it.
100%. People chase after status not realising they will never have enough to satisfy themselves.
I look at people driving their stupid cars – be it a ridiculous SUV or 4 wheel drive or a childish sports car and despair.
I’ve lived in Vietnam, a poor country for sure. But it is more equal than the UK and my impression is that people, even poor people are happier. I do not pretend they are happy. Everyone has ups and downs and deals with stress and this impacts their happiness. I mean overall, on average, by my impression, people are happier there than in South Korea or Japan which are two other far richer countries I have also lived in.
As for the UK? People are miserable and turning these emotions into anger and hate.
A fairer World is possible. Just how do we get there?
Great word!
All that entanglement in cumber (owning stuff) creates jobs which are in themselves an encumberment.
I am increasingly thinking that after a point, the development of UK as a great place to live is basically free, and more about how we are with each other rather than the amount of stuff we can produce and sell.
Given that Oil is in finite supply and there are significant practical and resource constraints with renewable electricity I suggest that what we are talking about is actually building ‘stranded assets’
Boats eh, now there are many many stories to be told but the Docks in Bristol or anywhere else for that matter are full of forlorn neglected craft which the owners have no realistic ability to maintain.
We just hired a boat for 4 hours on The Broads last week, had fun with it and gave it back, no fuss looking after it.
Renting makes a lot of sense
At the expense of thread drift……….
You say Renting makes a lot of sense
My car – a 57 plate Kia has a ‘average speed’ readout from the date of last reset – in my case January
It shows 25mph – and its gone up over the summer
I drive about 8000 miles pa -I gather slightly more than average so the car is in use for 320 hours a year or on average just over 50 minutes a day.
Now you can massage the figures how you want and I suspect that if you drive further you may well drive faster simply because of the nature of the roads you use and the journeys you make but you are going to be driving an awful lot of miles to significantly change that 50 minutes a day figure.
So what does this mean in terms of wasted or inefficiently used resources?
You can massage the figures however you wa
Yes some good points. One of the problems why vanity projects go ahead is they are often visible and therefore people are fooled into thinking ‘something is being done’; they are also promoted and supported by the more powerful in society; and, again the media including the BBC is often uncritical. In Cornwall we have the airport at Newquay – encouraging flights which is unsustainable but most parties are locked into supporting it!
Where I live near Lichfield is a case in point. Acres of new expensive prestige housing on tiny footprints, much of it interest-only mortgaged or shared buy schemes. At least two cars on every drive, mostly Porsche/Audi/BMW SUVs, and those we are aware of, fleet or some finance. Electorally, thanks to the high level of support for Reform (10k votes) and switches from Tories (15k for them) the centre-right Labour candidates was elected (17k). The levels of nationalist, racist, even misogynist material on local forums suggests a lot of very unhappy people whose unfulfilled lives translate into anger and hate.
PS I confess to owning a non-prestige sports car. Mazda MX5, 2005 reg, 110k on the clock, never failed to start.
I’ll remember ‘cumber’ when talking with clients. As I have said before, the least happy people I meet have too much of everything – money, possessions, liabilities – those with just what they need (no more ‘stuff’ required) are content with their ‘sufficient’ income streams and modest savings. Are they therefore ‘unencumbered’?
Spot on
They are unencumbered
Didnt realise there was such a word.
Apparently Labour’s ‘strategy’ is to get the ‘difficult decisions’ out of the way early – during the honeymoon period so they will reap the benefits later – but before the next election.
Which might have made some sense if the ‘difficult decisions’ were to stop building roads, nuclear power stations and other cumber rubbish – and spend to invest in health, education, tech etc – raising lower incomes, and ride out the inevitable ‘throwing money down the drain’ , ‘landing our childlren with unaffordable national debt’ – ‘tax bombshell’ strafing from the billionaire press .
But they seem bent on the precise opposite – cut cut cut – investment in public services – continuing the 14 year failed austerity which produced the wrecked economy and society Labour inherited.
They are condemning their own ‘growth’ aspiration to fail.
Does this demonstrate that their slavish devotion to neoliberal ideology prevents them from seeing that they are driving the economy off the cliff and ensuring their own destruction?
A good report from the LSE. However, the institution as a whole is a major supporter of promoting extreme neoliberal market dominated economics and a playground for the global rich.
As Ratty said to Mole…. there is nothing quite like messing about in boats.
Why we have not switched from diesel to electric on inland waters, I do not know.
Regulated to 3mph too, please
People take gin palaces down the River Ouse at 6mph
….6mph is ok if you have a sensible hull shape (reduced wash) and powered by silent electric motors.
But why? 3 mph gives you twice the time to enjoy it!
In Unto This Last (Part IV), Ruskin suggests that we need an opposite for the term ‘wealth’, for which he uses ‘illth’ – things (or people, specifically ‘many of the persons commonly considered wealthy’) that cause ‘various devastation and trouble around them in all directions’. Ruskin is an eccentric thinker in some ways, but highly inspiring in others. (The work was intended to be longer, but Thackeray cancelled it after four instalments in the Cornhill Magazine because of the torrent of complaints. Plus ca change … )
The LSE report would make good reading for Rachel Reeves.
https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/special/cepsp44.pdf
The Treasury has a method for evaluating the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of capital investments in the Green Book. Having had to put together 5 case business models using the Green Book methodology for local authorities competing for Towns Fund and Levelling Up capital, it is striking how high the BCRs are for educations and active travel, and how weal they are for highways infrastructure like bypasses and new roads. A new road will get funding if the BCR is above 1:1 – i.e. for every £1 spent, £1 is delivered in benefit to society. Indeed I’ve seen some roads approved with BCRs below 1. By contrast, the BCR for putting in new cycleways and pedestrian routes, segregating walkers, wheelers and cars has a BCR of over 35:1. Simply because the more active people are (walking not driving) correlates to better cardiovascular health – fewer heart attacks and less cost for the NHS. It’s good to see some active travel schemes being delivered, however there is a political lobby so strong in favour of the ‘cumber’some SUVs etc that I think the politicians ignore the Green Book rules when it suits them if it thinks it will get them the votes they need if they build more roads instead.
Thanks
Maybe another way of delivering broader benefit for money due to be spent on roads etc. would be to use that money to improve public transport. People gotta get around, but surely individual tin boxes is not the only answer. That would need a different mind-set in more than just spending, though, by way of societal and attitude change. We are a bit too much individualistic for public transport, I fear.
Might it be that societies could be basically differentiated into two groups which are debtors and creditors?
If this premise is sound, then might it be the case that the more people spend and get into debt, the more power the creditors have?
Might it be that this, and too many previous governments, have, consciously to unconsciously, governed for the creditors and have, consciously to unconsciously omitted full and effective finance-economics from the state enforced curriculum?
Might banks, notably in the form of bank managers, have significantly gone from being guardians of the public’s finances and debt minimalisation to promoters of debt?
I think you’re mixing up your debtors and creditors – easier to say the lenders and the borrowers, but I get your point
As an interesting, motivating and straightforward antidote to cumber, may I recommend “The Spirit Level at15”?
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/evidence-base/the-spirit-level-at-15/
I should look at
Hi Richard,
That sprit level at 15, comments that if continues, the richest 200 families will in 2035 own all of the UK’s GDP.
How will that look in theory with the country, services, economy, wellbeing etc?
I know it’s a broad question but to me, a lay person, sounds scary.
You can’t extrapolate like that, and it is naive to do so
But that said, increasing concentration of income and wealth is a major issue
The book itself s a masterpiece, for me it’s foundational text on a par with The Deficit Myth. The subtitle says it all: Why equality is better for everyone
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Equality-Better-Everyone/dp/0241954290/ref=asc_df_0241954290/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696285193871&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6210767961499431997&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006502&hvtargid=pla-2281435177098&psc=1&mcid=0f7e221310b43a56b455dc2052759b22&hvocijid=6210767961499431997-0241954290-&hvexpln=74&gad_source=1
Agreed