James Morrow: Stop reading this column and get back to work

Simply by reading this article, you are shirking your patriotic duty to use every waking moment getting and spending as much as you can, writes James Morrow.

Would you please stop being stressed and do some work? Thank you. (Pic: iStock)

You — yes, that’s right, you — stop what you’re doing.

Whether you know it or not, simply by clicking on this article and spending a few moments giving it some thought, you are shirking your patriotic duty to use your every waking moment getting and spending as much as you can.

That is to say, you are acting as a drag on the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.

But don’t feel too bad. Unless you’re reading this on your smartphone while nursing an infant, then console yourself that at least you’re not being as much of a sponge as those mothers who have decided to stay at home with their children.

That’s right: according to a report released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), mums are causing “potentially large losses” to the Australian economy by not getting back to work quickly enough.

Now of course there are probably plenty of mothers of small children who would like to get back to work, or get more work than they presently have.

But they surely wish to do so for combinations of complex reasons ranging from economic independence to personal fulfilment (i.e., “what I wouldn’t give for eight hours of proper conversations with adults that didn’t revolve around poo”).

The logic of the OECD — and all the other outfits that seek to manage and measure us all — is far more brutal.

And ironically for a group that is supposed to be all about spreading the gospel of free market democracy, the sort of thinking that sees any activity that isn’t about pushing the national accounts ever upwards sounds suspiciously, well, collective.

Mums, the sooner you get back to work after you’ve had your baby, the better for the Gross Domestic Product. (Pic: Thinkstock)

In the old days of the Soviet Union, citizens were encouraged to work doubly, triply hard, the better to meet the production targets fantasised for them in the Moscow Politburo. Beat your targets and you might get a few extra kopeks or rations. Miss them and risk being labelled a “wrecker” or “saboteur”, and face the consequences.

It was a system based around dreary sort of materialism that was fulfilling for no one and universally recognised as a fraud, which is why no one with the possible exception of the geniuses at the CIA were surprised when it fell over in a heap.

Happily, Australia and other modern nations (though not, it must be said, China, with whom we are in ever-increasing competition and which is regularly praised by a certain sort of pundit who admires Beijing’s ability to “get things done”) have been much more about the carrot than the stick when it comes to economic growth.

Capitalism is good like that: As a way to organise investment and labour and wind up with cheap cars and TVs, it can’t be beat.

But of course people are more than just economic animals, and outfits like the OECD fall over when they forget that the most important part of the phrase “free market” is the “free” bit. People — not “citizens” or “comrades” or whatever else you may wish to call them — are more than just economic animals, and a happy, prosperous nation is one where the ends are about personal fulfilment, not just getting more stuff.

And while right now the target is mothers, tomorrow it could be just about any other uneconomic pastime from birdwatching to teaching yourself Latin to spending all day cooking a meal from scratch with ingredients from the garden when bunging something in the oven from the supermarket freezer case would be far more “efficient” and “rational”.

It’s what Thomas Jefferson was on about when he subverted the prevailing Enlightenment thinking of the day — namely, that the proper role of government was to secure “life, liberty and property” — and instead came up with the thrilling trifecta of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” which is the cornerstone of the United States’ Declaration of Independence.

Or as another American, John F. Kennedy, put it in a similar vein, “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.

“It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.

“It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

It’s something our friends at the OECD would do well to remember.

James Morrow is the Daily Telegraph’s Opinion Editor