It never ceases to amaze me when governments speak of growth. Growing up in Brussels in close proximity with European bureaucrats has put me off figures for life. Whenever someone comes at me with a statistic I immediately shut off. Call it being numerically challenged if you prefer. I call it self-preservation. Furthermore, every time I am exposed to figures, I am shocked at how they measure reality in a very limited, subjective way. Some things go into the calculating of these sacrosanct figures, other things -things which one may have imagined ought to have gone in- do not. And when you consider the weight we lend to these very figures, well, it is a little perplexing if not frightening.
The issue I have with the current economic crisis -we have reached crisis level have we not?- is that figures seem more than unusually inept in getting us anywhere closer to a satisfying outcome. All I seem to be able to understand right now is that society's serious people are unhappy because their figures are either too high or too low. We want more growth, and we want more jobs.
That is all very well and good, but when I consider the already rather inflated state of the world, and the jobs which have been 'created' in order to somewhat artificially give people work, I find it very difficult to understand how we are supposed to grow even fatter, and where all this new employment is to come from. It reminds me of Aesop's fable, the Frog and the Ox, in which a frog inflates himself beyond his natural capacity wishing to achieve the same size as the ox, only to burst in the process.
In my view which -I must concede- is undoubtedly atrociously limited, either we have already invented all the things which society may need and employed all the necessary individuals to run those endeavours, or we have simply failed to invest in the right areas to the detriment of those sectors of activity which could still absorb employees. I think, indeed I hope, most people may agree that the United Kingdom together with other countries have invested far too much in open-ended and peculiar wars of which no doubt only our governments understand the underlying rationale. (I would love to bore you with figures here, but I will leave that to the care of others)
In addition, and I suspect as a corollary to this misguided investment in other people's democracy (ahem!), we do not seem to invest all that much in areas such as education, health and the arts. I speak as someone who decided to stray away from the comfort of law for the uncertainty of being an actress, and as a friend of people engaged both in education and in medicine. Most of the jobs available to actors starting out are unpaid. I am told there are levels of protection afforded to actors when they start getting paid jobs, but I have yet to see how these play out in practice. None of the actors I know, and that includes the exceptionally gifted, benefit from any sort of security or protection.
As for teaching, the conditions many teachers have to work in are extreme. And they are paid very little for their efforts. One friend used to come home quivering after being threatened and bullied by her students. Despite the verbal abuse and the threats, she got a lot out of her work. She loved winning over her classes, and gaining their trust. But it ought not to be that way. You should not have to force people to study, and suffer to see kids doomed from the outset through lack of exposure, lack of opportunity, and dare I say lack of care.
And if I am wrong, which I am sure the figure-minded will no doubt be able to 'prove', and we have invested in all the right areas and our society just needs more 'growth' in order to 'produce more jobs', then from where should we expect this miracle to come? Indeed, so much of our already achieved growth, so many of our artificially created jobs add nothing to society. Indeed, I would argue they detract from it.
Aldous Huxley and George Orwell were among the first to feel a natural aversion for advertising, one of the more grotesque forms of human enterprise. Why we should accept to have our minds toyed with, manipulated, kept in a constant state of unease and dissatisfaction is beyond me. Why we replace one iphone with the next happily remains a mystery. I apologize to those who happen to work in advertising, particularly if you yourself fail to see the limitations of your profession, and how harmful it is to society. You may retort that actors do not contribute anything either, and that they are responsible for our dumbing down. You may be right. We are all equally corrupted and disgusting. Let us take cold-calling as an example. I would very much like to interview the person who came up with that jewel of an invention, and ask him or her what terrible childhood incident led to this desire to torture people in such a cynical, cruelly subtle way. Yet that person has created jobs! That person has contributed to growth! If there were a planet to which one could escape, please let me know where it is, and what would be the most expedient form of travel.
Growth may still be possible, but whether or not the same sort of growth is possible or desirable is a moot point. Perhaps what we ought to be aiming for is another sort of growth. Growth in sectors such as education, health, and the arts are possible. There are many opportunities for creating jobs in those sectors. They are longer term investments, but it is about time this government, and others, adopt longer term preoccupations, over and above their immediate mandate and how most graspingly to secure another.