In 1798 Thomas Malthus published "An Essay on the Principle of Population" which contained some dire warnings for mankind. As we know, the agricultural and industrial revolutions rather put paid to those warnings - at least for the next couple of centuries. Then, in 1972, the Club of Rome issued "Limits to Growth", which again, posited, in most of the scenarios investigated, a turning point, possibly catastrophic, around 2030. Although the predicitions are now much derided a revisit 30 years on did not suggest that the issues have changed radically.
With all the recent talk about growth being the way out of the current national financial mess I've been musing about whether, on a more parochial level, we have actually reached a point where growth is not the paradigm to be adhered to. My rather under-developed thoughts run along these lines:
The UK has prospered as a service-based country for the last few decades, gaining from providing added-value services to the baby boomer generation (my generation!). Now the baby boomers are all retiring and are switching out of fat salaries into somewhat slimmer pensions (though not as slim as the likely pensions of the follow on generation - but that's another story). So - big question - will there be a growth market for value-add services? Quite possibly not in the UK and western Europe. So how about the emerging economies (BRICS, for instance)? Well, they may be emerging but per capita earnings aren't that high so it must be questioned as to whether there is a market for the UK there.
Which takes me back to my original thought. Is it time for a paradigm shift for the UK?
