By Ian McDonald
In a recent column I quoted that greatest of all West Indian intellectuals (and, by the way, the best writer on cricket who ever lived), CLR James, in a public speech he made in Trinidad about 50 years ago in which he pointed out that the good life is not to be judged by the quantity of goods accumulated. Piling up more and more material wealth does not solve the problems of either individuals or, especially, society.
Now, decades later, it can increasingly be observed that social commentators are speaking of a ‘new’ phrase which they say is entering the lexicon. It was coined by Colin le Duc, a British investment executive, who called attention to the “progress gap.” This simply recognizes what CLR in his speech pointed out fifty years ago: income growth, the sine qua non of economic success, is an unreliable indicator of how well a society is doing.
“The sad truth is that despite 50 years of economic growth in developed countries, the gap between economic prosperity and personal well-being has widened,” Colin le Duc writes in a recent issue of Rotman Magazine, the journal published by the management school at the University of Toronto. “We must find ways to reverse the trend.”
Yes, indeed. But this is not exactly an eureka moment for any number of people who know very well that there is a world of difference between what is good for the pocket book and what is good for the soul of man and the health of the world. To psychologists, it has been clear for a long time that people can’t consume their way to happiness. To sociologists, the link between material wealth and human development has always been tenuous. To environmentalists, it is a given that fouling the planet to fuel industrial growth is retrogressive and even malign for mankind. And I have not even mentioned that age-old prescription about man not living by bread alone.
But most economists, and nearly all businessmen, will not easily abandon the philosophy of the bottom line and acknowledge that genuine progress in society cannot simply be measured by financial success. And, after all, millions upon millions of investors search the index of the stock market to learn their fate rather than the more relevant indices of global warming, climate change, ice erosion and air pollution.
Not many moneymen I know will bother very much that while in the 19th century the ‘scent molecules’ produced by flowers could travel 1,000 metres, in today’s polluted atmosphere that distance has been reduced to 200 metres, making it difficult for bees to find the nectar they need to survive and go about their life-giving job of pollination.
There will have to be a complete change in approach if societies are to improve and the world, in the end, survive. How much pollution does profit and ‘progress’ produce? Is increased productivity worth the increased stress? How much life satisfaction does financial success bring? The questions have to be seriously addressed. And work is proceeding.
The Global Project, an initiative by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is searching for a better way to measure social progress. Contributing to this endeavour are an increasing number of scientists, environmentalists, academics in a range of disciplines and also economists and more and more representatives of the private sector in countries around the world. One such contributor, Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, has commented on the work being done. “The time is ripe for a redefinition of personal success.
While the production of goods and services has increased exponentially over the past 50 years, measures of life satisfaction have remained stagnant.”
But simply identifying the glaring mismatch between what economic statisticians and finance ministers measure and what ordinary citizens value is just the beginning of the battle.
The progress gap will only begin to close when businesses themselves adopt a new set of indicators that express the huge harm – to the environment, to people’s health and peace of mind, to a nation’s fundamental well-being – that follows from a growth-at-all-costs ethos.
