Author and ResPublica Fellow, Jules Peck, in a provocative post, urges David Cameron to be more radical on general wellbeing and economic sustainability
Not to be outdone by the competition, David Cameron has lost his TED-talk virginity (Gordon Brown spoke last year). Developing the theme of his Big Idea he spoke of helping people of a certain economic status work out ways to be happy with less money. Returning to his progressive wellbeing-economics form of two years ago, he backed the Sarkozy findings on GDP and growth and said he planned to work with the French President if he gets into power. I was pleased to hear that he used language similar to the
Quality Of Life Challenge. And he used language which echoed with the work of myself and Robert Phillips at
Citizen Renaissance when he said “It is a post-bureaucratic age and the citizen-consumer is in charge.”
He went on to cite fellow TED speaker
Daniel Kahneman, behavioural economics and remarked that more money – beyond a certain point achieved by most in the UK – brings no extra happiness. But then it all seemed to come unstuck when Cameron went somewhat off-piste saying “the real problem with inequity is between the bottom and the middle, rather than to worry too much about who's making money at the very top”. As the Observer said of this, “If Cameron really believed in ‘enhancing the quality of people's lives' he'd find a way of harnessing this excess money rather than his current grand plan; dreaming up new ways of slashing public services.”
Indeed if Cameron had taken a closer look at wellbeing he would find that the uber-wealthy actually reduce the wellbeing of all the rest of us. They lock society into a keep-up-with-the-Jones's hedonic treadmill in which we (and the planet) all lose out. When we live in a world of growing inequality and clear evidence that wealthy brings no extra wellbeing, it seems both immoral and myopic to miss the glaring truth that progressive taxation has a key role to play in improving the wellbeing of all. The lesson here is you can't pick and chose the bits of wellbeing theory you like and leave those you don't. If David Cameron wants a compassionate, progressive and innovative wellbeing/flourishing vision and narrative - and I think he genuinely does - then he will have to buy the whole package or walk away.
Getting things wrong in this way allows those who like to snipe at Cameron to have a field day. I have said before that
Cameron is in search of a Big Idea and this still seems true. In December 2009
James Forsyth echoed this in The Spectator, saying, “the Tories lack a central compelling message, despite having a well-developed policy portfolio.”
In an attempt to wash away the Thatcherite ‘nasty party' epithet, Cameron has in the past nodded towards the Big Idea of wellbeing-economics and that
“there is such a thing as society,” but soon let the concepts slip back into the shadows. In this one speech he seems to have done the same thing. Its also notable that this weeks
‘Never Voted Tory Before?' campaign has zero mention of sustainability, climate change, energy security or wellbeing. Clearly these issues have fallen well off the party's agenda and vision.
In a thoughtful recent New Statesman article, Dominic Sandbrook berated the politics of our age saying that above all, “one thing is missing, perhaps the most important thing of all: the big idea...there is little evidence that the general public has lost its appetite for big ideas”. This is as true of the left as it is of the right. And of Cameron he said “it is almost impossible to discern any genuine ideological vision behind the tree-hugging photo ops.
Last week the party had to recall posters sent out with ‘RIP-OFF' and ‘Now Gordon wants £20,000 when you die' emblazoned across them. This sort of farming of issues seems out of touch with both the ‘compassionate' theme and with voters, 81% of whom want more money spent on health and 60% of whom still think Government has a role to reduce the gap between rich and poor. As Andrew Grice says of public views in the 1990's and beyond in the Independent on 30th January 2010, “The country never really bought shares in Thatcherism and demand for higher spending and redistribution of wealth grew”.
As
Andrew Rawnsley said of Cameron in The Observer this weekend
“David Cameron himself is not always a consistent Cameronite. When projecting himself as a compassionate, centrist Conservative, he promises to protect the budgets for the health service and overseas aid while expressing an interest in tackling poverty and inequality. Wearing the face of the traditional Tory, he sticks with the policy to make cuts to inheritance tax which would be of most value to millionaires."
I plan to examine the issues underpinning wellbeing-economics and sustainability in a landmark report for ResPublica. In the meantime here is
one millionaire that perhaps David Cameron should listen to.
ResPublica Director, Phillip Blond, will respond to Jules' thought-provoking piece with his take on the radical future of the Cameron agenda - especially in light of this week's announcements on spreading employee ownership throughout the public sector, here on The Disraeli Room, next week.