ABSTRACT
The presumption is that life has been made easier by all these advances. In reality, however, living and doing business has become more difficult as well as becoming disproportionately more expensive. Medical education is supposedly better than ever and hospital equipment never more sophisticated, yet the level of culpable negligence among doctors and nurses is at record levels. The four more accurate indicators of national wealth creation – the Stock Exchange, national competitiveness, both business, personal taxation, the effort and expense of setting up the new businesses that create wealth – show how profitless the actual affairs of state. The workplace has never been more mobile – or so mercurial. The UK is a useful example, appearing as it does in the middle reaches of the productivity and competitiveness league tables among OECD countries. It is the world's oldest industrial nation. To flag up Britain's lack of productivity may seem somewhat at odds with the national picture of apparent 'wealth'.
