Britain is in a deep rut — on that, people of all political persuasions can agree. To understand how to get out of this rut and avert continued national decline, it must first be understood why Britain is in such a sorry state. A natural place to start searching for answers is by examining the people who have been running Britain. What is it that motivates them? What is it that they believe? Why have they pursued the policies they have, given that the downsides seem so apparent?
Any project that seeks to carve out a brighter future for Britain must first diagnose the pathologies of our ruling class that caused our current malaise, before then constructing an alternative path forward.
One theory often bandied about is that of Britain’s ruling class being singularly obsessed with profit and the cult of GDP growth. The theory holds that Britain’s ruling class no longer conceive of the polity they control as a nation — a homeland for a particular people with a strong history, culture and identity — but instead as an economic zone from which profit is to be extracted. They have become deracinated and greedy, forgetting the common bonds needed to tie a nation together. They measure national wellbeing solely through the crude metric of GDP, uninterested in the cultural or spiritual health of the nation, treating whatever is good for the GDP figures as being synonymous with what is good for the nation more broadly. As a result of this crude economism, Britain’s ruling class have been indifferent to the enormous social changes wrought on the country by their policies, such as unprecedented levels of migrations, since such immaterial concerns hold no weight within their outlook.
The theory is an alluring one, for it can fit neatly into both left- and right-wing paradigms. It provides an understandable explanation for why Britain’s ruling class have mismanaged the country in terms that are intuitive to anyone: their lust for profit has blinded them to any of the negative externalities that their relentless push for GDP growth has pushed onto the rest of us. The “economic zone” theory also allows for a simple answer to a complex question: if the cause of our current dysfunction is our ruling class treating Britain like a mere economic zone, then all we need to change course is have a ruling class who view Britain as more than just an economic zone.
The problem is that this theory is a complete fantasy.
A cursory inspection of the politics of the last few decades shows the farcical implausibility of this diagnosis. Rather than having a ruling class singularly obsessed with GDP growth and indifferent to other concerns, we have the inverse: a ruling class obsessed with a myriad of different causes and concerns that consistently take precedence over economic growth. The pattern is of major projects that would boost GDP being blocked and delayed for spurious reasons.
This ruling class has not created a Britain of freewheeling profiteers
A ruling class obsessed with making the GDP line go up would have expanded Heathrow decades ago, not repeatedly blocked the project due to concerns like noise pollution. Data centres would not be denied planning permission for spoiling views over a motorway. An “economic zone” view of Britain would be an area of intense fossil fuel extraction, yet our ruling class seem intent on destroying what little is left of Britain’s fossil fuel industry in the name of stringent climate goals that they have imposed on themselves.
Many of the most pressing issues facing the country today would not exist in “economic zone Britain”. There would be no housing crisis, for developers would be free to meet demand and build wherever they wished, unrestrained by planning regulations and burdensome affordability restrictions. The most productive areas of the country would be left for its most productive members, meaning no social housing in areas like central London. The immigration system would exist purely to extract profit from migrants, who would expect no recourse to public funds or political rights of any kind — for, after all, why would they be entitled to political rights if this were just an “economic zone”? An “economic zone Britain” would have an immigration regime akin to the kafala system used by states in the Gulf — a world away from Britain’s actual immigration policy.
Instead, Britain today is dominated by intense suspicion of anything justified by economic gain alone. Profit, rather than being the only currency our ruling class understands, is treated as exploitative and borderline immoral. Headlines can be found in nominally right-wing newspapers decrying supermarket profits soaring during a “cost of living crisis”. Instead of congratulating firms for increasing their profits, MPs haul their directors into select committees to berate them. Private property developers are chastised and met with political opposition for daring to seek to make a profit, because God forbid a private company could be motivated by something as vulgar as making money. If one of Britain’s increasingly few successful industries do start to turn a healthy profit, meanwhile, rather than being celebrated, they can expect to have a windfall tax slapped on them for having the temerity to make too much money. Some “economic zone” we have here!
Likewise, Britain’s immigration system is not one geared towards maximising GDP and motivated by profit, but one that routinely implements policies to the economic detriment of the country. There is no economic case for spending over £5 billion per year on putting up migrants in hotels. Migrant workers brought over to do low-paid jobs do not need to bring over their dependents, including children who are immediately entitled to a taxpayer funded education. Attempts to curb migration are not criticised or evaluated on an economic basis, but rather are attacked by MPs on account of being “cruel” and “discriminatory”.
It is a commitment to self-important values and procedure that really characterises Britain’s ruling class. Britain, for them, is not an economic zone from which profit is to be extracted, but a social enterprise in which moral and institutional norms must be upheld. This ruling class has not created a Britain of freewheeling profiteers, but a country where citizens are swamped with endless obligations — to each other, to foreigners, to the climate, to our NHS. Profit is only viewed as useful insofar as it can direct more money to those causes.
Any critique of Britain’s ruling class must therefore contend with the fact that their motives can far better be understood as a desire to do what is “nice” and “kind” rather than a crude pursuit of profit. The desire to be seen as “nice”, and the intense aversion to doing anything perceived as “nasty”, trumps any economic cost. A ruling class which conceives of Britain as merely an “economic zone” is a fictional scapegoat that can more palatably be slain than the reality. Attacking Britain’s ruling class for being motivated by profit is easy, but are you willing to attack them for being motivated by kindness?
