Beware of semantic tricks by the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

In August 2018, Charles Leadbeater, visiting professor at the UCLIIPP published an article entitled “Movements with missions make markets.”

Incidentally, UCLIIPP drew attention on Twitter to this article about eighteen months after the article was written. One reason for that, I’d guess, is that no one seems to pay much attention to UCLIIPP. Certainly it’s rare for anyone to respond to their tweets and there are no comments after Leadbeater’s article, even eighteen months after it was published. UCLIIPP personnel seem to be desperate to draw attention to themselves and justify their salaries. Personally I give my own blog articles just one mention on Twitter: the day they are published. And that’s it, unless an article is of specific relevance to something I’m dealing with months or years later.

Anyway, Leadbeater’s article basically claims that the contraceptive pill, and the success thereof is an example of the so called “mission” idea pushed by UCLIIPP, and which thus supports the latter idea.

A “mission”, as the word is used by UCLIIPP authors, is a project which has no immediate economic benefits, but which does involve technological spin-offs, i.e. solving technical problems, which at a later date will probably bring economic benefits. The example cited over and over again in UCLIIP literature (including in Leadbeater’s article) is Kennedy’s Moon shot. The latter was clearly astronomically expensive and there were almost no obvious economic benefits: the main motive was to get one up on the Russians.

Another example of UCLIIPP literature which explains what is meant by a mission is an article of theirs entitled "Missions: a beginner's guide."

Unfortunately the contraceptive pill is a hundred miles from being an example of a mission. The motive of the pharmaceutical companies in developing the contraceptive pill was (gasps of amazement) to make money: to make a profit! I.e. the pill was seen from the outset as something which, unlike Kennedy’s Moon shot, had an immediate economic benefit. Or at least it had an economic benefit on the assumption that anything which makes profits for corporations involves an economic benefit, an assumption which of course can be criticised. 

But that isn't the only example of UCLIIPP authors citing projects which would happen anyway (i.e. without any help from UCLIIPP) as an example is their “mission” idea. Another example is the Green New Deal: that is, UCLIIPP authors try to portray the GND as an example of a “mission”.

Well the first flaw in that claim by the UCLIIPP is that scientists and others were aware of the problems stemming from CO2 induced global warming decades before the UCLIIPP introduced its “mission” idea.  That is, we would be going ahead with the GND in some shape or form even if the UCLIIPP had never started wittering on about “missions”.

Second, the GND cannot be classified as a project, like Kennedy’s Moon shot, which has no immediate economic benefits. The GND, if it is successful, will stop numerous coastal cities being flooded, plus it will stop parts of Africa becoming so hot that they are uninhabitable. Those two strike me as pretty clear economic benefits!