Speaker 1
But have we really got enough already? I challenged him on that point because rich country, there we may be, we still seem to have trouble, for example, funding our health service.
Speaker 2
In providing for our health service, we can simply look at how health services are provided for in other countries in Europe, which don't have necessarily as high GDP per capita as us. But for instance in Finland, the country I've looked at in most detail, have waiting lists which are measures in days or sometimes they get upset because they are a few weeks having to wait for our operations. There are many many ways in which you can improve your health services without having growth. Similarly, if you look the other way, say the USA, a richer country than the UK and one which has had higher growth in recent years, they have a health service which is one of the worst in the rich world and they have some of the worst health outcomes in the rich
Speaker 1
world. There are plenty of mainstream economists who challenge the notion that societies such as ours like Alice in Wonderland, when she eats her growing cake, growing so much that we've hit the ceiling, Diane Coil is Bennett Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge.
Speaker 3
I don't think there's a limit because are you saying people can never invent anything again? When you look at all the discoveries that are going on in biomedicine, in materials, in green energy, are you really saying that we don't want people to invent new things that will improve the quality of life and actually help sustainability? Because that's what growth is driven by innovation, things that make our lives immeasurably better over time, not just in material terms because you can afford more hamburgs or shoes, but in quality of life and health and longevity. So no, I don't think there's a limit.
Speaker 5
People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk
Speaker 5
money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
