Não se faz com mais betão

Ontem, com "Trepar às árvores com muita rapidez", deu para ver o resultado de investir na subida na escala de valor.

Entretanto, é tempo de ir buscar um texto publicado no The Times do passado dia 21 de Outubro, sobre Inglaterra, mas muito aplicável a um certo Portugal político, à esquerda e à direita. 

O texto é de William Hague, ainda me lembro dele como ministro, e intitula-se "Less build, build, build: more think, think, think":

"Just as Labour MPs know that their entire fate will probably rest on whether Rachel Reeves can get her budget right next month, so almost everything in politics rests on good economics.

This year the prize  [Moi ici: Nobel prize for economics] has gone to three economists who have demonstrated how sustained economic growth is driven by innovation.

...

 Sustained growth, he has shown, depends on science and technology evolving together, a high level of mechanical competence to make the most of them, and a society open to disruptive change.

The other two winners, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, also showed how innovation is the key driver of growth, through a process of "creative destruction" of established companies by new products and processes [Moi ici: A grande lição que aprendi em 2007 com Maliranta sobre a evolução da produtividade na Finlândia]. While the work of all three economists is about how innovation unfolds, it is clear from their conclusions that such innovation is the main and overwhelmingly important determinant of whether we live in a growing or a stagnating economy.

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In Britain and the rest of Europe, while governments have many initiatives that support innovation, much of their activity fails to give it sufficient priority and most of their policies actively stifle it. That is why they are stuck in stagnation and running out of money.

Ministers continue to believe that building infrastructure and spending more money creates growth. [Moi ici: Por momentos viajei no tempo e ouvi Sócrates a dizer que era preciso mais betão, mais betão e mais betão. A cena de assar sardinhas com fósforos.] But if innovation is the key driver of growth, they are wrong.

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Ministers like to "build, build, build", because new towns and infrastructure are things you can touch, point at and for which they can claim credit. The trouble with putting effort into new ideas is that they are uncertain, you can't see them, they are risky and the National Audit Office finds it hard to measure them. Yet the only hope of growth is to encourage people to "think, think, think".

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Listen to many economists and political leaders and you might think growth comes from government spending, or entirely depends on interest rates, small tax changes, stability or consumer confidence. These things do matter, day to day. But to grow sustainably we need the freedom to have new ideas and implement them. Literally everything will depend on it."

Subir na escala de valor é o nosso “think, think, think”.

Não se faz com mais betão — faz-se com mais ideias, mais liberdade e mais coragem para arriscar.

BTW, vejo pessoas que apoiam o actual governo muito contentes com a taxa de desemprego e o crescimento do PIB, mas ao mesmo tempo a produtividade arrasta-se.