What should we target?

Policymakers rarely use explicit targets and still more rarely do they use them in a coherent manner. Take two high-level targets: the inflation rate, targeted by the UK, and the less-than-two degrees Celsius warming targeted by the Paris Agreement. Near explicit and implicit targets – de facto targets – are more common. National governments routinely target economic growth. As well as these macro-targets, there is a proliferation of  micro-targets: in the UK, waiting times at hospital Accident and Emergency departments, for instance. 

What do all these targets have in common? One is that they are set by people who are not charged with achieving them, and will be little affected whether they are achieved or not. Another is that they have little directly to do with social or environmental well-being. There might be a strong correlation between, for instance, GDP and material prosperity; there is likely to be a strong correlation between the two-degrees Celsius target and plant, animal and human well-being. But it's my view that, because there is no direct link, these targets fail to achieve societal buy-in. The two degrees target is too abstract. If more than two degrees leads to unacceptable depredations, why not aim directly to reduce the severity of those depredations? That would be a goal with which people other than scientists and policymakers could identify.

The implicit GDP target is also rapidly becoming discredited. It says nothing about the distribution of the gains from economic growth, and with the dramatic divergence between incomes of those at the top of the scale from all others, risks becoming as detached from social well-being as are indices of share prices – and for much the same reason.

If anything, the micro-targets are worse. Again, they are set by people who have little direct interest in seeing them achieved. As well, they are very easily manipulated or gamed, leading to perverse outcomes, none of which benefit people, and some of which worsen well-being.

Where does that lead us? Most components of social well-being are not explicily targeted. Sadly, as society grows more complex and diverse, unless things are explicitly targeted they tend to fall through the cracks. The environment has throughout recent history has suffered this fate, as have other essential, but similarly unquantifiable determinants of well-being such as social cohesion. In smaller societies, these elements of The Commons would be the subject of informal arrangements, often arrived at after a long evolutionary process.

That won’t work in today’s highly aggregated and increasingly diverse societies. People in positions of power are increasingly detached from everyday concerns – the things that microtargets or, more importantly, the market, fail to capture. Unlike in traditional societies, when things are neglected by the people who lead today’s societies they are ignored. Political discourse and resources get channelled into the few things that are targeted, including economic growth, and away from those elements that escape the market or some other form of quantification. As well as the environment, and these include some important components of mental and physical health. They aren’t targeted directly, so attract fewer resources than they should.

But, given that a return to traditional societies is not going to happen, targets based on aggregate numbers are essential. So: what should we target? My thinking is that we need to target broad social and environmental goals whose achievement would be inextricably linked to improved social well-being and generate buy-in. Economic growth doesn’t cut it; nor does the two degrees target. So what would qualify? Alleviation of poverty, improved physical and mental health, reduced impact of adverse climatic events on human, animal and plant life: these are all broad, meaningful goals, whose achievement would be both meaningful to all, and generate the buy-in sadly lacking when we target GDP, two degrees, or hospital waiting times. I am more ambitious even than such targets would indicate though. If, as I hope, we begin to target genuine, verifiable, meaningful outcomes, why stop at national goals? A Social Policy Bond regime, not having to specify how our goals shall be achieved, or who shall achieve them, could and should aim for global goals. I suggest that we explicitly target for reduction the adverse effects of both natural disasters and violent political conflict.