Not long ago I wrote a column throwing freezing water on the usefulness of election manifestos or indeed any master plan. However, as the season of campaigning grows towards ripeness, I wish to put forward a little manifesto in the form of an article which I wrote some time ago and which I believe remains as relevant as ever. I think it will be my only contribution to the debate.
In the background of all our lives there exists a fundamental and dominating lie. It is that material success counts more than anything else – indeed, that nothing else counts but material success.
People are not simply, or even principally, thinking machines. Most people absorb much more information from sense impressions and emotions then they do from abstract symbols. The world is not only, or even most importantly, material. Scientific reason can never be more than part of the story. Human beings are concerned most of their thinking lives with values whereas scientific reason, as Ludwig Wittgenstein, that most exacting of philosophers, kept ramming home to anyone who would listen, cannot cope with questions of value at all.
We are still being brainwashed into believing that economic growth is the main measure of success. This is a deadly miscalculation of what to be human really means. Despite efforts at the UN and elsewhere to change the success – indices of nations from the purely economic, still in every country, GDP remains the official index of a nation’s well-being. But this is an obvious absurdity. For instance, if a natural disaster strikes, bringing untold misery, the immediate impact leads to growth in GDP as industry reacts to repair the physical damage. If crime flourishes GDP grows as police forces expand and more prisons are built. On the other hand, a woman will work in her garden for years, creating an oasis of peace, order and beauty – no GDP measures that. And a couple – or indeed, a single parent – will raise children to lead lives of honest endeavour, compassion and public service – GDP does not measure that devotion.
GDP is not and never can be a measure of success or contentment. It is merely a measure of activity, good or bad. A high level of GDP can contain immense evil. A low level of GDP can contain incalculable good. Take one obvious example: many cities ravaged by crime, drug-taking, and a complete break-down in family life are considerably “richer” than much “poorer” places elsewhere where there is substantially more stability and everyday contentment.
And when national success is measured in materialistic terms, is it any wonder that individuals take their lead from that and become accustomed to measuring their own success in similar terms? Making more money, accumulating material goods, these become the leading, and even the only good in life. Who are we to doubt the judgement of the State which says that economic gain is the ultimate objective? Over and over again our political masters – in Government and Opposition – as they debate the fate of the nation reach for material indices to indicate how brilliantly well or disastrously badly the nation is doing. And matching them in private so do we judge our own affairs – our wealth or poverty seen only in money or material terms.
How do you measure the contribution which intangible virtues make in any society: integrity, tolerance, courtesy, the concept of duty owed to others, a shared civility, magnanimity, goodwill and forbearance, regard for the aged, concern for the disadvantaged, gentleness with children, love of freedom, intellectual passion, truth and openness in all relationships not least in business, respect for high standards in all we try to do, an instinct to preserve the earth unsullied? Perhaps it is because such virtues are incalculable that they are not counted in the sums that dominate the lives of nations and our own lives nowadays. That fundamental mistake will ruin the world. Such virtues are the very definition of humanity at its best and when society mocks or neglects them it will in the end most certainly fail.
A long, long time ago I was asked, I think by the then Chairman of Bookers, Jock Campbell, to meet a visitor to Guyana. His name was Kenneth Boulding and he was a very distinguished economist. I cannot remember what he was to do in Guyana at the time but I remember he was a most remarkable man. I was astonished to find, for instance, that an economist could recite from memory long sections of Wordsworth’s great poem “The Prelude.” I loved talking with him about the future of the world. He made a great impression on me but, sadly, our paths never again crossed. But when he died I noted his obituary quoted one of his typical observations. “No money value is usually placed on an honest man but in a very real sense when honesty decays a true capital value of society declines.” No truer word was ever spoken. Unfortunately, however, leaders with the vision of a Kenneth Boulding are few and far between in the world today. So look around you – however high GDP climbs, the true capital values of society are everywhere in precipitous decline.
The true purpose of all our political parties, all our political endeavours, is to reverse that decline.
