The business case for...

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Instead of seeking to justify policies on economic grounds, why don't politicians make "moral cases", or even "romantic cases" for their arguments, asks Michael Blastland in his regular column.

What we need are huge dormitories, child factories, basically, so that the economies of scale in child production can be fully realised. Feeding and cleaning of the children could be performed in shifts by full-time staff, probably low-paid migrant workers, as would discipline with the use of a single naughty step 50ft wide, monitored by CCTV.

An observation tower here and there would mean huge savings in the cost of supervision. And fewer toys would be required because they could be easily circulated.

All told, the business case for streamlining the early years care of children is overwhelming. In fact, I have calculated potential savings to the nation of £43bn a year.

'And this section explains your contract of employment'

"The business case for…" like "the economic case for…" is one of those phrases that seems to ooze from every nook and cranny of argument these days. This begins rationally enough. Counting the cost of what you want to do is often sensible, and also - sometimes surprisingly - moral: saving money might mean you can do more of the good things.

But is it also possible to get carried away? The interesting question is why people would. Why the dominance of the business case rather than any other, particularly in those areas where this craze seems biggest, in social policy. Has politics lost confidence in other forms of argument? "Never mind that it's the right thing to do, does it, or can it be made to appear that it saves cash?"

Some recent examples:

• the economic case against divorce,
• the business case for flexible working,
• the cost-to-the-NHS case against smoking

All of these are suspect, by which I mean that the business case might - it's often hard to tell - actually be the opposite of that claimed.

The economics of divorce - the costs to the nation of broken homes etc - were recently offered as a good reason for encouraging couples to stay together. Damaged children, the extra crime they might commit, the cost of benefits and so on, was reckoned to burden every taxpayer by between £680 and £820 a year.

But what if that calculation is wrong and family breakdown in some way profitable? Does that mean you junk your support for marriage? Counting these costs is an extremely imprecise exercise subject overwhelmingly to assumptions and decisions about what to include in the calculation.

Divorce economics

There might, for example, be substantial economic additions to GDP from separation, perhaps from a tendency for more people to go out to work to support an increased number of households. Is that in the calculation?

So does the business case work out, perversely, in favour of family break-down? The question, perhaps, is whether we should care about the business or economic case on divorce. Maybe we should find some better arguments than money to describe the value of marriage.

A net contributor in GDP terms

The same goes for smoking, which to avoid confusion is something I have to point out that I am happy to see less of. Treating smokers costs the NHS in England £2.7bn a year, compared with £1.7bn a decade ago, it was said recently.

Except that there's strong evidence that the best financial value to the nation is if smokers really go for it, feed the Inland Revenue's coffers with excise duty, get lung cancer and die quickly at 65 before they cost us a packet in social care in old age.

Does that mean we should encourage smoking? Hardly. But it might mean we should get another argument, for example that a smoking habit can be smelly and dirty, that other people don't like it, that it's about the worst thing you can do for your health short of running under a bus, and that maybe other people who love you care about you not killing yourself early and you should think about their interests too.

Maybe you'll find none of those persuasive, but maybe health is also a value that sometimes has nothing to do with money.

The business case for flexible working is uncertain, though this hasn't stopped people making it. It too rests on assumptions and guesswork and can easily be tilted the other way. Perhaps the question is whether the case for flexible working is not that it's necessarily good for the business bottom-line but that it's good for people's lives. These might or might not be the same thing.

Here speaks someone who uses a lot of numbers: sometimes, you can have too many.

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A selection of your comments appears below.

It is a sad fact that money has become more important than people, the planet, nature and, in fact, anything else in the universe. We pay those who work in the city far more than we pay nurses and doctors and among the lowest paid are carers. That is why it is always the business case that gets put forward. Money should be just a means of exchanging goods and services but it has taken on a life and importance of its own. This is a totally false construct.
Val, Devon

There is a business case for abusing and taking advantage of poor people in poor countries with poor education. There is a moral case for helping poor people in poor countries with poor education so they develop their own businesses. Unfortunately, the latter means helping the said poor people to develop their understanding of a business case so they can go on and abuse or exploit other people. Hmmm....
Nick, London

I agree very much with the sentiment behind this article. In particular I feel strongly that the 'business case' is in conflict with our attitudes to adopting 'green' technology or practices. The counter argument often made is whether or not a matter is cost effective. There is a danger that a preoccupation with cost will prevent the adoption of some green issues/technologies (such as micro-energy generation)which ought to be adopted whether or not they are cost effective.
Graham, Essex

Nice to see someone finally talking some sense about how things are justified, although in the case of smoking, it seemed to be my moral duty to keep smoking while it provided more revenue to the country than if I quit. When it changed, I quit. It would be nice to see more issues argued on whether it's the right thing to do, rather than whether it will make a financial return. Maybe if we all focussed on whether a choice will make us happy rather than rich then we'd all live in a nicer world.
Tom, Much Hadham, UK

Money is a universal value. Morals are relative. I have no moral problem with the Iraqis hanging Saddam Hussein. My moral code says he was an evil man and deserved it. Many disagree. What can't be argued with is that the war in Iraq cost us many billions of pounds.
Peter, Notts

Read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The use of the "classical view" by politicians is undeniably because they think this makes their case far more plausible and "reasonable" but they are, as ever, missing the point.
Andy Watt, Reading, UK

Yes, yes, yes! I have been saying it for years let them smoke and boost the pension pot ... by not claiming any! Several thousand NHS 'stop smoking' workers 'let go' would save another packet!

Colin Watts, Poole UK

The sad fact is, that smokers are a net contributor to the NHS. The amount of tax revenue generated by smokers far outweighs the cost of treating smoking related complaints. On this basis should non-smokers be compelled to pay for insurance to gain access to the NHS. Furthermore the cost of treating alcohol related injuries appear to be sidelined and play second fiddle to the war on smokers.
Nick Abraham, St Albans, UK

There is no logical business case against smoking. The government takes a huge amount of revenue from smokers. Large amounts of pub's have closed as people are drinking at home where they can smoke. This leads to unemployment from the pubs, their suppliers and distributors. We are continuously reminded of the dangers of smoking, but the government has never released the figures of alcohol related incidents, financial costings to the NHS, the police etc. The list goes on, as could I…
Mark S, Morecambe

Great argument has been presented here. It makes me think...Is it right to go to war? Is there money to make out of it? What can represent more of the human kind failure to spend their time and money on earth than a war? Still, we buy it. The problem is, we are keen on wrapping our decisions up on moral paper, and then it sells. In a way, it feels great to think you are saving the world somehow, even if you are not, or even if you are actually making it worse. The money argument is only used when everything else is not enough. Still, it is not the great 'mover' of human intervention, the great incentives are, in a nutshell, love, hate and ignorance.
Bel, London, UK