RISE THE TIDE:
We have to make people care about economic growth: The very real promise of economic growth must be made to seem tangible (Daniel Dieppe, 17 October, 2026, The Critic)
Indeed, properly understood, economic growth is a lynchpin to a whole myriad of social and economic problems. Paying the Triple Lock state pension, which rises by at least 2.5 per cent per annum, would be much easier if the economy kept pace with the single largest welfare expenditure. The NEETs and graduate jobs crisis could be solved if there were, well — more jobs. The arguments for mass immigration, supposedly needed to keep the economy going, could be pulled apart if economic growth remained high.
Yet despite growth’s almost puppeteer status at the centre of our modern national story, few people associate their everyday problems with it. Eliminating poverty, by far the greatest raison d’etre for left-wing politics, is not associated with economic growth, even though economic growth is the single greatest alleviator of poverty throughout history.
An economy exists to create wealth: its distribution is a political question.