I just finished ‘How Much is Enough?’ by RobertSkidelsky. I certainly do not agree with many of the explanations provided in
the book and many of the suggestions made. Yet, it is a thought-provoking book,
no doubt about that! Skidelsky has shown courage to develop suggestions, based
on explanations, with acknowledged religious overtone. He does now thump the
chest while arguing that government policy should cease to be the value-neutral
or liberal or efficiency based and it should explicitly move away from mad pursuit
of growth. Clearly, his explanation lacks sophistication and is more of a
persuasive nature, the style which we miss in the days of semi-formal books published
by Economists about everything under the sky. But he takes on an interesting journey to
establish that there is more to life, more to policy-making than some digits.
I have always though that Religion was a way,
at least theoretically, to tap the consumption. Why any ancient civilization
would have thought to tap off the consumption? Obvious answer is ‘the resource
constraint’. But there is more to consumption control than sustainability. There
is good moral argument of why any society, whether resource abundant or scarce,
needs to promote values different that consumption maximization.
I understand that there is always some
totalitarian agenda lurking in moral and non-liberal sounding arguments. But, we
must ask that is being liberal is all about following our senses or being free
to discover the basis for all our actions, even an action of denying or accepting
liberal point of views.
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