I am starting to produce material for the fast-growing Business and Politics site. (Fear not. This site continues unabated, soon with a face-lift.)

Such as this piece today on whether it is ‘suicidal’ to expect continuing economic growth, or suicidal not to:

What is economic growth, in fact?

It’s nothing other than decisions by people to do things together, usually expressed in legal contracts which give expression to new ideas by putting resources behind them. Profoundly democratic and cooperative behaviour. Which also is why the most dangerous, unstable and poor places in the world tend to be those places where there is no respectable legal order.

So less growth = fewer contracts = fewer ideas brought to fruition = less freedom = less humanity… 

… I was at a conference in New York on the Internet and Politics a while back. One speaker put it in stark terms: the change brought by the Internet is that over a billion people now own the means of production of ideas.

An astounding insight. And every time one of them does a deal with someone else to give effect to an idea, global GDP clocks up a notch. Just as it does when Roger Steare or I write a blog piece about it.

Is that really so bad? Would it not be suicidal to try to stop that happening?

To put it another way, economic growth should not “be seen as essential to well-being”. It is well-being.

With added Abbey Road: