I recently attended the Annual Lecture of the Academy of Social Sciences in London, which was given by Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. The lecture was a fascinating journey through the problem of industrial productivity in the UK, as seen through the lens of economics. In the way of much economic analysis, it offered a compelling statement of a problem – but struggled to find an adequate solution….
It is time for sociologists to remember that the good stuff has to be paid for. Our contribution to the moral evaluation of society is an historic and important one – but it is not the only one that we have to make. Social and economic justice are not simply matters of distributing the existing pot: they are also crucially affected by how we might make that pot bigger. Industrial productivity matters to the people we claim to be concerned about and the public services that they draw on. It should be as big a part of our agenda as it is for our neighbours in economics.
A blog for Sage SocialScienceSpace