4

...it is palpably absurd to continue talking, and acting, as if our survival -- or our 'economic health' -- depended upon that extra one or two percent growth. At the risk of offending financial journalists and other fastidious scrutinizers of economic statistics, whose spirits have been trained to soar or sink on detecting a half percent swing in any index, I must voice the view that the near-exclusive concern with industrial growth is, in the present condition of Britain, unimaginative and unworthy.