At last, Polly Toynbee is getting the question right
The present day “guns v butter” has morphed into a warfare/welfare zero-sum.
A static world is zero-sum. At any given level of technology economic resources are scarce. We cannot have everything, we face a production frontier. Thus some decision must be made, somehow, on what it is that will be produced in order for it to be consumed. Guns v butter is a useful encapsulation of the point.
This is, sadly, just one of those things that is true about a static society, a static economy.
The only way out of the zero-sum position is economic growth. As we’ve been saying, economic growth is people doing new things, or old things in new - and more efficient, less economic resource consuming - ways. That’s just what economic growth is. The result of such growth being more that can be spent on whatever desired lovelies. Thus the way out of Polly’s Dilemma is more growth. That way we can get ourselvexs into hte position of being able to do both essentials of the British state, succour the poor and also biff the French.
So, rip away all those rules and laws and Lanyards that prevent growth. Observe that M. Piketty is advocating high income and wealth taxes in order to stall growth entirely - and thus, from the observation, note that high income and wealth taxes are the opposite of what we require.
A lower tax, lighter regulation, economy will have more growth. More growth will lead to being able to have more of everything, even if not everything itself.
So, Polly Toynbee is asking the right question - finally - but she’s not going to like the answer, is she? Free markets red in tooth and claw are what is required. As is always true of course.
Tim Worstall