Employment, Growth and Basic Needs

There can be no doubt that, from the moral or human point of view, neither growth nor even employment can claim any intrinsic justification for itself. It is only as means of satisfying basic human needs and aspirations that they are entitled to receive at least one cheer each. And if the ultimate allegiance we owe as human beings is, above all, to each other, in order to reinforce our common humanity, it follows that sufficiency for everyone before superfluity for anyone should be the cardinal principle of social behaviour. Thus far, there is nothing new in the emphasis on basic needs or on the eradication of mass poverty, for throughout the ages the poor have never been unheralded or unsung, however little their plight might have been heeded in actual human conduct. What is new are two comparatively recent perceptions: one, that science and technology can increase production everywhere on a scale that makes poverty unnecessary as a global phenomenon within the foreseeable future; and secondly, that scientific and technological advance no less than increases in employment and mass well-being require a certain social and political milieu.