Progress, Politics and Economics

Alfred Marshall believed that the economy matters and that economic growth matters most of all. Economic growth means human betterment — since, and allowing for the element of chaff which inevitably accompanies even the finest of wheat, growth on balance yields a rich harvest of improvements in consumption, conduct and character. Human betterment means good politics — since, and allowing for the fact that the bureaucrat by definition lacks the alertness, flair and initiative of the entrepreneur, a more enlightened and more responsible environment upgrades the ship of State and renders it capable of sailing into waters previously inaccessible to it. Good politics means human betterment — by correcting an undesirable if market-determined distribution of income and by providing a safety-net of care for those in states of dependency. Good politics means economic growth — by plugging potential leaks in the circular flow (the case of the tabular standard of value as a means of obviating the destabilising crisis) and by supplying better fuel for an upgraded vessel (the case of the provision of public goods such as education which we as a nation need and we as individuals do not adequately purchase). Human betterment means economic growth — by generating the tastes and preferences, traits and aptitudes, necessary to render steady advance self-sustaining. Economic growth means human betterment and good politics. Alfred Marshall believed that the economy matters and that economic growth matters most of all — and that economics was therefore an eminently suitable subject of study for a moralist and a missionary who was anxious to do good: ‘The dominant aim of economics in the present generation’, he insisted, ‘is to contribute to a solution of social problems.’1