Tag Archives: wellbeing economics

What is the economy for? Liberalism already knows the answer

By Roz Savage MP | Tue 28th April 2026 - 9:10 am

What is the economy for?

It’s a simple question. But how we answer it underpins everything else in politics.

We created the economy to serve us – to make life easier, safer, better. It is a human system, designed to help people thrive.

But somewhere along the way, that relationship has become inverted. Too often, it feels as though people and communities are expected to bend themselves around the demands of the economy, rather than the other way round.

For decades, we have treated GDP growth as the ultimate measure of success. If the number goes up, we assume things are getting better. But most people instinctively know that isn’t the full story.

GDP can rise while people feel less secure, less connected, and less hopeful. It can rise while our rivers are polluted, our soils depleted, and our public services stretched. It can rise while inequality widens and communities fracture.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured and gdp | 66 Comments

Jo Swinson talks to the Observer about a new approach to economics

By NewsHound | Wed 2nd July 2025 - 3:30 pm

Jo Swinson has long been interested in challenging the conventional way of determining economic success. She’s a graduate of the London School of Economics and when she was a Lib Dem MP, and leader, she promoted the idea of measuring wellbeing and not just GDP.

She has spent the past five years as the Director of Partners for a New Economy. This week she was interviewed about the work of PANE in the Observer.

She had some important observations to make about the timidity of some centre-left governments:

We are in this moment of rupture, where the old economic consensus around neoliberalism has lost credibility and is going away but the new economic paradigm has not yet become clear,” says Jo Swinson.

“The irony is that the defenders of the neoliberal status quo seem to be centre-left governments in different parts of the world.” That, she argues, is one reason the left is struggling: “People have sussed out that this economic system doesn’t work.” By contrast, “the part of the right that is being successful has stopped defending neoliberalism, because they know that it’s not popular and that defending it is not going to win them votes.”

She was positive about the direction Mark Carney might take in Canada: