We have enough...

There is a lot of talk at the moment, particularly in the Labour Party, that politicians should recognise aspiration as an important value that stimulates the middle classes. Aspiration is a difficult word to define properly in social and economic terms. I say this because I sometimes think it's about time the so-called aspirational middle classes aspired to accept they have enough, and could possibly be happier with a little less. 

The presumption that everyone should have increasing amounts of "stuff" does not equate to increasing human happiness and usually works against any realistic campaign to prevent climate change. Be thankful people. Most of us have enough. The pursuit of happiness has more to do with friends, family and community and less to do with owning the latest gadget.

The only politician I can remember talking about human happiness during an economic debate was John Pardoe the Liberal Party's economic spokesman during the February 1974 General Election. He appeared alongside Labour and Tory representatives on a TV show, which if memory serves was called Weekend World, although it might have been a predecessor show on ITV.  He said that the purpose of economic policy was to increase human happiness, and this totally floored the other two politicians who did not know how to react. 

He also said, a little tongue in cheek, that about half of public spending was probably wasted; the problem was working out which half. 


There was also a policy debate in the Liberal Party Assembly during the 70's which actually discussed the possibility of aiming for a zero-growth economy, the move being led at that time by Eric Avebury. The motion was defeated, but I sometimes think that the crude pursuit of economic growth is less important than the redistribution of wealth, using the state to both rebalance the economy and to rebalance life opportunities for people through a well funded and well managed Education system. 


So let us redefine aspiration. Surely the pursuit of human happiness is the more important aspiration we should recognise, rather than the ambition for ever increasing personal wealth, measured only in cash terms?