Economists and pundits have proposed many factors contributing to the UK’s stagnant productivity, from austerity to Brexit to insufficient housing. I’m sure that all of these have had an effect, but as I’ve said before, I think there is a cultural factor at play here: Britain’s gloomy conservatism.
In this post I want to focus on a particular angle or perhaps consequence of this conservatism: the almost complete annihilation of a sense of agency and control of one’s destiny in many people. As in America, in the UK many people seem to think everything is broken. But whereas in America this has led to the development of a well-funded VC and entrepreneurship ecosystem, in the UK it has led people to turn their eyes to government and plead for help as their first instead of last port of call.
Consider: if you believe that energy companies are making exorbitant profits, instead of demanding windfall taxes, why don’t you start your own energy company? If you can provide energy at lower prices, you’ll easily beat incumbents. If you think banks are profiting unfairly from high interest rates, instead of complaining about it, why don’t you start your own bank? If you think Ticketmaster is gouging consumers, why don’t you start your own tickets platform?
I imagine the response I’d get from those who call from government intervention is that the game is rigged1: one cannot just start a new company, they will be destroyed by the all-powerful incumbents. But new companies that successfully challenge incumbents are founded all the time (OVO was founded in 2009; Monzo and Revolut in 2015). And in fact, most of the challenges you’ll face starting a new company in all these areas won’t come from the incumbents, but from your inability to meet the regulations and acquire the licenses you’ll need to get started (Revolut only managed to get its banking license this year!) — all of which have been put in place because people have asked the government to do more to force incumbents to provide a better service, instead of relying on entrepreneurs to do the same through competition.
But my main objection to turning to the government to fix your problems is not economic, it’s moral. Humans are at their happiest when they create, when they feel empowered, when they’re accomplishing something, when they feel they’re in control of their life. Increasingly, the message to the British public is the opposite of all that: it’s that we’re a pathetic people. We can’t do things. We can’t fix things. We need the government to do it for us. This is stopping people from doing things for themselves and from following their creative impulses. It’s depressing.
This needs to change. If you’re a politician hearing people’s pleas for help, instead of feeding their worst instincts, why don’t you do your job and lead by communicating a vision? Why don’t you remind people, like Kennedy did, that they should be asking what they can do for their country? Why don’t you make it your job to help them make a better future for themselves, instead of depending on you and your colleagues to do it for them?
And if you’re a citizen, concerned that the quality of a service in the UK is too low — the trains are overcrowded, the supermarkets too expensive, the water companies too bloated, the care homes too negligent, &c — why do you ask the government to fix it for you? Why do you think you’re entitled to someone else doing the work? Why don’t you roll up your sleeves and do it yourself? Instead of asking the government to tax the incumbents more, why don’t you demand that it removes the barriers it has placed in your way to create your own company?
I am not arguing for a libertarian society. Government has a role to play in protecting the less fortunate, and to holding companies to account when they break their promises and contracts. But a world where we turn to the government for help because Oasis tickets are too expensive is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. We can and should do better.
Another response might be that some things are inherent rights, which must be provided by the government on principle. Of course, entire books have been written on this, but a few brief objections are that a) whence these inherent rights? b) even if you grant their existence, that only suggests they should be free to consume — not administered by a government; c) even if you believe some rights are inalienable and must be provided for directly by the government, I struggle to see how cookie tracking and Oasis tickets fall in that category.