In defence of growth: cautionary tales from the precautionary principle
Cowering to the establishment's fears perversely invites in our worst nightmares. Only rediscovering our growth mindset innocence will fix the problems they have created.
Goldman Sachs has revised the UK growth forecast and cited the reversal of Liz Truss' tax cuts as a reason.
While Jeremy Hunt is giving the markets what he thinks they want; we need to understand that less growth means the continuation of our cycle of low wages and high taxes we have seen over the last 12 years. If that is what ‘stability’ looks like in practice, we need to think about what this complete U-turn actually means for us going forward and weigh this up candidly against the alternative - going boldly for growth.
Stability and keeping the cost of borrowing down are both really important, but we need to acknowledge that the status quo comes at an untenable cost of growth, reward, and realisation of our true economic potential – as is reflected in the forecasting. I fail to see how this serves the country or the Tories well.
On a deeper level, the establishment is locked into the fear-driven logic of the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is a broad disposition to innovation which emphasises caution, pausing and review before leaping into new innovations that may prove disastrous.
In contrast, the growth mindset is an approach to life with places faith in our abilities and that our potential to harness and effectively encourage these holds the key to unlocking innovations which make life better. It is an optimistic and life-affirming disposition based on confidence in our innate faculties and takes to cultivating these through discipline and effort joyfully.
We learn in literature and in spirituality that overzealous protection from worse-case scenarios ultimately makes their fruition more likely - not less. Closely linked to the precautionary principle is the self-fulfilling prophecy.
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