As of the 1st June, the Bank of England has a new statutory obligation to “contribute to protecting and enhancing the stability of the financial systems of the UK.”

What’s odd about this, from my point of view, is that financial systems and markets can never be stabilised. They are inheriently chaotic. We swing wildly from growth to recession and back again.

True stability would be 0% growth, forever. Everyone keeps making exactly what they’re making, everyone consumes exactly what they’re consuming. Except even that wouldn’t be stable, because we live on a whole planet of different economies, all interacting with ours. Get them to buy and sell the same stuff to us that they’re buying and selling now? It’s never going to happen.

If the Bank of England were to interpret this instruction literally, one would expect them to use any means necessary to keep growth at 0%. Keep the economy under control. Keep it predictable. This is impossible.

Of course they’d never interpret it literally, but this does prompt the question: What is Brown really asking the Bank of England to do? Stability is, and always has been, a Brownian buzz word. A reassuring, friendly catch-all for ‘do good things to the economy’ without actually meaning anything at all.

I want growth not stability. When did growth become a dirty word? When did growth need regulating against?