Governments with Visions in Conflict

By Shahab Sabahi – Energy and Environment for Development – Research Group

One of the principal roles of government is to ensure that long term public goods are not undermined by short term private interests. Governments also desire to protect social justice, and sometimes at least rhetorically ecosystem. Further, governments are bound to the pursuit of economic growth.

To drive the latter task, governments ought to, as the conventional macroeconomic wisdom urges, be so active in championing the pursuit of unbounded consumer freedom, often elevating consumer sovereignty above social goals and actively encouraging the expansion of the market even if it is necessary, in private areas of individuals. Contrary, the first two roles require governments intervene, either implicitly or explicitly, to protect common goods from spread of the market and guarantee the redistribution of wealth.

There is a real sense of policy-goals competition. Under prevailing political economic logic, it is clear that for stabilizing the macroeconomics, economic growth is indispensable. Governments, therefore, are bound to prioritize economic growth, even with compromising other goals.

It means, since the consumption expansion, spending extension, and depleting natural resources assure the social stability, governments never take serious measures to encourage society-wide savings, support small community-based businesses, and never intervene to stop exploitation of natural resources (by the way,  governments love to fund researches on sustainable development).  They simply say “people can spend more, so they would be happy, won’t they?”  

Are you happy?