Tomorrow, when Rachel Reeves stands up in Parliament to deliver the Spring Statement, it is likely to make for grim viewing.
With growth flatlining – the most recent figures show the economy shrank by 0.1% in January – despite the Government’s best efforts, Britain is still stuck in a slump.
This is bad for a number of reasons, but mostly because it means that any spending decisions become essentially a zero-sum game. That’s why in order to increase defence spending, Keir Starmer felt he had to cut aid spending. Whereas if the economy had continued to grow at the rate it had before the 2008 global financial crisis, it’s conceivable that by now we could be spending more money on both.
The goal then, as now widely recognised by both the current Government and the Conservative Opposition, is growth.
But then the obvious questions to ask are ‘how?’ and ‘to what ends?’ Keir Starmer doesn’t seem to have a ready answer, reportedly once saying ‘There is no such thing as Starmerism’. And Kemi Badenoch has so far been reticent to offer anything concrete, as she leads the search for her party’s ideological renewal.
So it’s exciting that an answer for both parties – or whichever is brave enough – might be slowly emerging from the other side of the Atlantic. As the Democrats have been searching for a new direction following Donald Trump’s second victory, a new set of ideas have come to the fore – which could answer our growth questions too.
For several years now, there has been a growing political movement centred around the idea that we can reject the need for scarcity. That we don’t need to accept that housing will inevitably be expensive, or that to tackle climate change we necessarily need to live materially worse, more miserable lives.
It’s an idea that has crystallised as ‘Abundance’, and is the subject of increasing focus – largely thanks to a new book by the influential American writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, who have titled their manifesto, well, ‘Abundance’.
The idea at the core of their argument is compelling: that the mistake we’ve made for a generation is focusing too much on process and managing demand – and not on the outcomes we want, or the supply side of the equation.
For example, there’s no law of physics that says that housing has to be expensive and take an extremely long time to construct. It’s a consequence of excessive proceduralism. When housing is proposed, there are too many veto points where interest groups, quangos or local residents can delay or sink a development. Many of these veto points, individually, might be well meaning – who could think an environmental review is a bad idea? But all of these veto points added together is a recipe for stasis.
And similarly, on climate change, the abundance view is that it is a false choice to force us to choose either reducing our standard of living or letting global temperatures get out of control. This is because we’ve already invented a third option: renewable energy like solar and wind power, as well as nuclear power. We just have to actually build infrastructure. So the challenge is one of political will and persuading politicians to take the less cowardly route, and support the building of new pylons, windmills and solar panels.
The intellectual roots of the movement also go much deeper – there are strains of Yimbyism – and the movement is much more optimistic about the power of technology than others are.
I think it’s a perspective we desperately need in Britain too – for a couple of reasons.
First, it reframes a lot of existing political debates into questions of ends and not means – as Klein pointed out in a recent New York Times column, this means, for example, that while housing might have a market solution – less regulation – other supply-side issues like the creation of new vaccines or other basic scientific research, might require state funding.
And as for what those ends should be? This is what I find more inspiring, as an abundance view doesn’t stop at, for example, generating enough renewable energy to replace the fossil fuels we currently use – but instead asks the question: what if we had even more energy than we need? If we can achieve energy abundance, where the cost of electricity is negligible, it unlocks new technologies that are currently considered too energy intensive, like direct air capture of carbon emissions or the at-scale manufacturing of lab-grown ‘cultivated’ meat. It’s pro-growth, it’s forward-looking and tells an inspiring story.
Taken to their full extent, some abundance ideas might sound fanciful or difficult to achieve. Can we really embrace technology, reform institutions and grasp some of Britain’s most vexing problems? I like to think so – which is why I’ve recently started a podcast with my friend Martin Robbins to talk about and promote these ideas.
But ultimately, I think this abundance approach is one that can meet the moment we’re in, and provides the political and ideological tools to unlock the growth we so desperately need. Starmer could quite easily refashion these ideas as his answer to what ‘Starmerism’ is. But equally, Badenoch could use the abundance mindset to offer a contrasting, positive vision for the future – which will contrast with Reform’s implicit promise to return us to a past that no longer exists.
So I think it’s time for Britain to get on board with abundance – and unlock the growth we need.
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