Does money
matter? Does wealth make us rich any more? These might seem like odd
questions for a physicist to try to answer, but Britain’s
referendum decision is a reminder that everything is connected and
that if we wish to understand the fundamental nature of the universe,
we’d be very foolish to ignore the role that wealth does and
doesn’t play in our society.
I argued
during the referendum campaign that it would be a mistake for Britain
to leave the European Union. I’m sad about the result, but if I’ve
learned one lesson in my life it is to make the best of the hand you
are dealt. Now we must learn to live outside the EU, but in order to
manage that successfully we need to understand why British people
made the choice that they did. I believe that wealth, the way we
understand it and the way we share it, played a crucial role in their
decision. As the prime minister, Theresa May, said in her first week
in office: “We need to reform the economy to allow more people to
share in the country’s prosperity.”
We all know
that money is important. One of the reasons I believed it would be
wrong to leave the EU was related to grants. British science needs
all the money it can get, and one important source of such funding
has for many years been the European commission. Without these
grants, much important work would not and could not have happened.
There is already some evidence of British scientists being frozen out
of European projects, and we need the government to tackle this issue
as soon possible.
Money is
also important because it is liberating for individuals. I have
spoken in the past about my concern that government spending cuts in
the UK will diminish support for disabled students, support that
helped me during my career. In my case, of course, money has helped
not only make my career possible but has also literally kept me
alive.
On one
occasion while in Switzerland early on in my career, I developed
pneumonia, and my college at Cambridge, Gonville and Caius, arranged
to have me flown back to the UK for treatment. Without their money I
might not have survived to do all the thinking that I’ve managed
since then. Cash can set individuals free, just as poverty can
certainly trap them and limit their potential, to their own detriment
and that of the human race.
So I would
be the last person to decry the significance of money. However,
although wealth has played an important practical role in my life, I
have of course had a different relationship with it to most people.
Paying for my care as a severely disabled man, and my work, is
crucial; the acquisition of possessions is not. I don’t know what I
would do with a racehorse, or indeed a Ferrari, even if I could
afford one. So I have come to see money as a facilitator, as a means
to an end – whether it is for ideas, or health, or security – but
never as an end in itself.
Interestingly
this attitude, for a long time seen as the predictable eccentricity
of a Cambridge academic, is now more widely shared. People are
starting to question the value of pure wealth. Is knowledge or
experience more important than money? Can possessions stand in the
way of fulfilment? Can we truly own anything, or are we just
transient custodians?
These
questions are leading to a shift in behaviour which, in turn, is
inspiring some groundbreaking new enterprises and ideas. These are
termed “cathedral projects”, the modern equivalent of the grand
church buildings, constructed as part of humanity’s attempt to
bridge heaven and Earth. These ideas are started by one generation
with the hope a future generation will take up these challenges.
I hope and
believe that people will embrace more of this cathedral thinking for
the future, as they have done in the past, because we are in perilous
times. Our planet and the human race face multiple challenges. These
challenges are global and serious – climate change, food
production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic
disease, acidification of the oceans. Such pressing issues will
require us to collaborate, all of us, with a shared vision and
cooperative endeavour to ensure that humanity can survive. We will
need to adapt, rethink, refocus and change some of our fundamental
assumptions about what we mean by wealth, by possessions, by mine and
yours. Just like children, we will have to learn to share.
If we fail
then the forces that contributed to Brexit, the envy and isolationism
not just in the UK but around the world that spring from not sharing,
of cultures driven by a narrow definition of wealth and a failure to
divide it more fairly, both within nations and across national
borders, will strengthen. If that were to happen, I would not be
optimistic about the long-term outlook for our species.
But we can
and will succeed. Humans are endlessly resourceful, optimistic and
adaptable. We must broaden our definition of wealth to include
knowledge, natural resources, and human capacity, and at the same
time learn to share each of those more fairly. If we do this, then
there is no limit to what humans can achieve together.
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