{"id":93379,"date":"2026-07-02T08:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=93379"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:08:07","slug":"obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/07\/02\/obsession\/","title":{"rendered":"Obsession"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the sixth in a series of essays on the politics of care<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0economics of hope<\/a>. The others are listed at the end of this essay.<\/em><\/p>\n

As with the other essays, I acknowledge the input of my wife, Jacqueline, into this essay.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

If money is just an accounting entry, why do we spend so much time worrying about it?<\/p>\n

After all, nobody lies awake worrying whether there are enough metres or kilograms. They are simply units we use to measure things.<\/p>\n

If money is just the unit we use to organise economic activity, why does it dominate politics?<\/p>\n

The answer is that money may be an accounting system, but access to it determines access to almost everything else.<\/p>\n

If you have enough money, you can buy food, housing, healthcare, education, transport, security and leisure.<\/p>\n

If you do not, your choices become very limited.<\/p>\n

Money is not wealth.<\/p>\n

But in the society we have built, it is the key that unlocks access to wealth.<\/p>\n

That makes it immensely important.<\/p>\n

Why are governments so obsessed with money?<\/p>\n

This is where many people become confused.<\/p>\n

Governments often behave as though they are households.<\/p>\n

They talk about \u201crunning out of money\u201d.<\/p>\n

They tell us they must \u201clive within their means\u201d.<\/p>\n

They insist they have to \u201cbalance the books\u201d.<\/p>\n

But governments that issue their own currency are not households.<\/p>\n

They create the money everyone else uses.<\/p>\n

So why do they act as though they cannot?<\/p>\n

There are several reasons.<\/p>\n

First, many politicians genuinely misunderstand how modern money works. They have absorbed the same myths as everyone else.<\/p>\n

Second, talking about a shortage of money is politically useful.<\/p>\n

If politicians said, \u201cWe could afford this, but we choose not to do it,\u201d people would ask why.<\/p>\n

Instead, saying \u201cThere is no money\u201d shifts the blame onto economics rather than politics.<\/p>\n

It makes choices sound inevitable.<\/p>\n

Third, money is a way of allocating power.<\/p>\n

Who gets funding?<\/p>\n

Who does not?<\/p>\n

Which regions prosper?<\/p>\n

Which services survive?<\/p>\n

Which industries expand?<\/p>\n

Money decides all these things.<\/p>\n

Control over money is therefore also control over society.<\/p>\n

But surely there must be limits?<\/p>\n

Of course there are.<\/p>\n

The mistake is thinking the limit is money itself.<\/p>\n

Suppose every hospital in the country suddenly wanted twice as many surgeons tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Creating the money would not create the surgeons.<\/p>\n

Training takes years.<\/p>\n

The real constraint is the availability of skilled people.<\/p>\n

Exactly the same applies to housing.<\/p>\n

If there are not enough builders, bricks or timber, writing bigger numbers into bank accounts will not solve the shortage.<\/p>\n

The constraint is always the real world.<\/p>\n

Money merely helps us organise it.<\/p>\n

So why does government worry about deficits?<\/p>\n

Because deficits are visible.<\/p>\n

Unused potential is much harder to measure.<\/p>\n

A budget deficit appears as a single number.<\/p>\n

The fact that hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed, millions are underemployed, schools need repairing, rivers are polluted, carers are exhausted and children are going hungry does not appear in a single number.<\/p>\n

Yet those are the things that really matter.<\/p>\n

The obsession with financial balances often distracts us from asking whether we are making the best use of the country\u2019s real resources.<\/p>\n

What should government worry about instead?<\/p>\n

A government should ask very different questions.<\/p>\n

Do we have enough people in work?<\/p>\n

Are those who want to work able to do so?<\/p>\n

Are people adequately housed?<\/p>\n

Are children well educated?<\/p>\n

Is the population healthy?<\/p>\n

Are we protecting nature?<\/p>\n

Are we investing for the future?<\/p>\n

Are we reducing inequality?<\/p>\n

These are questions about real outcomes.<\/p>\n

Money should be judged by whether it helps us achieve them.<\/p>\n

The simple summary<\/p>\n

Money is only an accounting system.<\/p>\n

But because it determines who gets access to real resources, it has become a symbol of power.<\/p>\n

Governments often pretend that money is scarce because that makes political choices appear unavoidable. It allows them to say, \u201cWe can\u2019t,\u201d instead of admitting, \u201cWe won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real question is almost never, \u201cCan we afford it?\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, \u201cDo we have the people, skills, technology and natural resources to do it without creating inflation or damaging the future?\u201d<\/p>\n

Once you understand that, politics changes.<\/p>\n

The debate is no longer about finding money.<\/p>\n

It is about deciding what kind of society we want to create, and then using our real resources wisely to make it happen.<\/p>\n

\n

Other essays in this series<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Potential<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Becoming<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Exergy<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Money<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Cooperation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is the sixth in a series of essays on the politics of care\u00a0and\u00a0economics of hope. The others are listed at the end of this
     Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,239,174,224,156,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-economics-of-hope","category-modern-monetary-theory","category-neoliberalism","category-office-for-tax-responsibility","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93379"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93487,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93379\/revisions\/93487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}