Meetings of the Philosophy Special Interest Group during the 2026 Summer term will be held on:

9th July, 2:30, Studio

What does the decline of reading mean for the future of society?

Economic growth is a phenomenon which has always been and remains at the core of most politician’s thinking.  It is essentially the promise that “things are going to be better in the future”.  The economist Kate Raworth, who thinks we can only grow within the boundaries of sustainability, says in effect, politicians think that economic grow is possible because it has to be!  No one, it seems is going to vote for anyone who promises to make us worse off, and politicians don’t want to face the alternative prospect of redistributing wealth.  The current government tried to do this (in a very limited way) by a modest proposal to do it via inheritance tax on agricultural holdings but caved in in the face of protests from the farming community.  (You may of course disagree).  Without providing a detailed survey of economic history, economic growth in the past has enabled good things to happen, like the formation of the Health Service and the Welfare State (you may not agree).  Perhaps the outstanding example of the benefits of economic growth is China, where many millions have been lifted out of poverty.

Torsten Bell is the Labour MP for Swansea, but before that he was the head of the “Resolution Foundation” an organisation that aimed at monitoring the social and economic situation of the less well-off in our society.  He raises some interesting questions in his recent book “Great Britain? How we get our Future Back.”  Over my lifetime (now 80 years!) I was educated by the state, went to university (debt free except for my own love of parties!), got a job, marry, have two children, buy a very modest home, and after 40 years retire with an adequate pension (which Rachel Reeves is currently diminishing by a fiendish plot called fiscal drag!).  I make a point of listening to my children and other younger people and sense an air of pessimism.  Torsten Bell takes this up in his book and says (P.44) that it is rooted in a brutal economic reality.  We are not alone, but Household wealth in the UK – property, pensions, financial assets, and physical assets like cars, were in the UK from the 1950’s to 80’s worth just under 3X the nations GDP.  At the time of writing (9^th December 2025) it stands at 7X National Income.  It is currently estimated by the ONS that British households hold over £15 Trillion in wealth.

It used to be thought that wealth is generated by work, thrift and the creation of new assets, and whilst there are examples of this being done, largely it is not the case.  Wealth means higher prices for existing assets – much of it is down to luck, not graft.  The value of land (which God is not currently creating more of) has increased in value by over 600% in the past 30 years.  The economist (the late) John Kenneth Galbraith maintained that we would never solve the problem of poverty until we sort out the problem of land ownership, which the current government plainly failed to do.  This is not new.  In 1878 the American economist Henry George published a groundbreaking work called “Progress and Poverty” in which he sought to answer the question “Why does poverty exist?” alongside such huge agglomerations of wealth?  He saw that advances in technology, education etc. increased the value of land and offered as a solution a single tax on land values.  “Go, get yourself a piece of ground and hold possession – you may as a consequence live in a mansion, but next door will be an alms-house!”

The problem is inequality.  In the UK the top 10% of wealthier households hold 43% of the wealth.  To join them you need an entry ticket priced at £1.4 Million.  Even if you are in the top 10% of high-income households living on £60,000 a year, you would need to save every penny of that for over 30 years to reach that figure.  The reality is that you would never get there.

The second moral issue already alluded to is sustainability.  Torsten Bell argues against “de-growth”, but goes on to say that not everyone, or every region benefits equally from economic growth.  During my life I managed to gain a couple of promotions and my income increased, now I get from my children and other young people that things are much harder.

So, the question is and remains, is economic growth a moral imperative, or are there other solutions.  To complicate the question, many people are warning that AI could lead to a fall in the availability of employment prospects making the issue of economic growth and its benefit even more problematic, creating more pessimism and inequality.

Discuss!

Richard Walker

To gain a better understanding of the areas discussed at past SIG meetings, have a look at the Philosophy Background Reading Page