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While the wider global environment is worrying, we are seeing some positive results in our economic affairs.

As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency.

We have become stronger economically; we have been successfully resolving the social problems, raising the level of living - the standards of living - of the population.

But we can also take the radical view that the test of an economy has to do with the extent to which it is providing everybody with a decent means of living.

I think that we live in a highly specialized, technologically advanced society. Highly developed societies tend to have very remote understandings about what underlies our prosperity.

We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment.

Over and over, the economy has determined the extent of our response, but how much value does it place on breathable air, drinkable water, edible food and stable weather and climate? Surely the economy is the means to a better future, not an end in itself. Surely it must be subordinate to a rich, diverse ecosphere that sustains all life.

The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being.

We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives.