The Guardian view on Britain’s productive forces: they are not working | Editorial
Productivity isn't everything, observed the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, but in the long run it is almost everything. For Britons, the worrying news is that the growth in productivity - the amount of stuff we produce every hour - has slowed to a snail's pace. The Office for Budget Responsibility, after maintaining a sunny disposition in the face of ever darkening clouds of data, now accepts that we are unlikely to return to pre-crash levels of productivity growth. Below the OBR's seemingly innocuous statement is the "everything" that Mr Krugman alludes to. Before the crash, we would have expected living standards to double every 40 years.
If we were to carry on in the current manner, it would take more than two centuries to do so. Unless something drastic happens we face not just losing a decade, but a future.