Maybe it's because he hasn't exactly enjoyed excessive growth himself (with his stack heels and specially chosen short people in photo ops), but Nicholas Sarkozy has commissioned and endorsed a report by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen that criticises the obsession with GDP growth. “For years, statistics have registered an increasingly strong economic growth as a victory over shortage – until it emerged that this growth was destroying more than it was creating,” says Sarko. You've got to hand it to him - not the most likeable bloke, but this is good. (He and Angela Merkel have also been good on the whole financial crisis, and are pretty good on the climate talks.)
And here's Jonathan Porritt talking about it, while revealing for the umpteenth time that the Treasury (mostly under Brown, alas) has frequently been malign, obstructive and anti-progressive.
1 comment:
Totally agree - though I don't think it's Sarkozy who's great, so much as France itself. It's obviously a country and culture with all kinds of flaws, but on the fundamental issues of what really matters, they are so so far ahead of us. To that extent, they are no more capable of electing a really right wing president than America is of electing a left wing one.
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