We benefit as a nation from the wealth of natural resources around us such as clean air, rainfall, energy from the sun and the planet's biodiversity. Our society also depends upon the unpaid work provided by carers and volunteers. We reject the view that wealth can be measured solely in monetary units, a view which allows its adherents to think it consists primarily of the results of human labour. This error has caused successive governments to pursue objectives which appear to increase the nation's wealth while in fact they reduce it. Symbols of wealth, like money, reinforce the error and dominate political decision making.
Economic growth is a poor guide to human welfare.
PB 412 New economic ideas, institutions and organisations are needed to reduce our dependence on such symbols. Economic policy should be directed not to maximising the forms of wealth that can be measured in monetary terms, but to ensuring that the needs of all are met. A sustainable society can be prosperous, but it cannot have continually rising affluence. We accept that there is a limit to the wealth each person can receive, and this is true no matter how much or how little work needs to be done to produce that wealth. Some redistribution of income will be required.