The
crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the
new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid
symptoms appear. (Antonio Gramsci)
by
Jayati Ghosh
Part
8 - New Demand and Production
This
requires new patterns of demand and production. It is why the present
focus on developing new means of measuring genuine progress,
well-being and quality of life are so important. Quantitative GDP
growth targets, which still dominate the thinking of policy-makers,
are not simply distracting from these more important goals but can be
counterproductive.
For example,
a chaotic, polluting and unpleasant system of privatised urban
transport involving many vehicles and over-congested roads generates
more GDP than a safe, efficient and affordable system of public
transport that reduces congestion and provides a pleasant living and
working environment.
It is not
enough to talk about ‘cleaner, greener technologies’ to produce
goods that are based on the old and now discredited pattern of
consumption. Instead, we must think creatively about consumption
itself, and work out which goods and services are more necessary and
desirable for our societies.
This cannot
be left to market forces, since the international demonstration
effect and the power of advertising will continue to create
undesirable wants and unsustainable consumption and production.
But public
intervention in the market cannot be knee-jerk responses to
constantly changing short-term conditions. Instead, planning – not
in the sense of the detailed planning that destroyed the reputation
of command regimes, but strategic thinking about the social
requirements and goals for the future – is absolutely essential.
Fiscal and monetary policies, as well as other forms of intervention,
will have to be used to redirect consumption and production towards
these social goals, to bring about such shifts in socially-created
aspirations and material wants, and to reorganise economic life to be
less rapacious and more sustainable.
Since state
involvement in economic activity is now an imperative, we should be
thinking of ways to make involvement more democratic and accountable
within our countries and internationally. Large amounts of public
money will be used for financial bailouts and to provide fiscal
stimuli. How this is done will have huge implications for
distribution, access to resources and living conditions of the
ordinary people whose taxes will be paying for this.
So it is
essential that we design the global economic architecture to function
more democratically. And it is even more important that states across
the world, when formulating and implementing economic policies, are
more open and responsive to the needs of the majority of their
citizens.
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