Economic growth
Thank you for printing my ‘Thought for the week’ (26 July) on economic growth. The same day I read a passage in George Lakey’s autobiography Dancing with History which is so relevant to the last part of my piece that I’d like to share it with your readers. George is an American Quaker, a well-known lifelong advocate for peace, justice and nonviolent social change.
On page 354 he shows why radical change ‘will require a power shift’. He then continues: ‘That’s for people’s movements to make happen, through what will amount to a nonviolent revolution. My belief is that a mass mobilisation can’t happen without an alternative that can be communicated in a persuasive way; therefore, we do need to do the homework on issues… and come up with an easy-to-communicate vision to replace what we have now.’
John Lampen
How wholeheartedly I agree with John Lampen’s ‘Thought…’ about economic growth, ‘Will we only change when catastrophe forces us?’
It should be obvious to anyone who possesses intelligence, and our new prime minister and chancellor certainly do, that nothing organic can continue growing forever. Animal and vegetable life, reaching maturity thrive, reproduce, and then inevitably in due course perish. Obesity shortens life. Huge size leads to death. Nothing can get larger forever. Overfull rivers burst their banks. Empires expand, conquer all, crumble and fall.
In God’s creation, if ever there was a golden age, there was balance (or so it appears to us today) before the human race began to destroy that balance by greed and inequality.
May we hope that the government will aim for economic sustainability, not growth, and that the new Green and Quaker (sometimes both in one individual) MPs will work towards this.
Rosemary Mathew
