Transitoriness

I have a theory about why our economy is so stagnant. It’s something I call the ‘white van economy.’

In a nutshell, the reason I contend our economy is failing is because we don’t produce anything of value anymore. Our economy has shifted dramatically from a products-based economy to a services-based one. But the white van economy goes much deeper than detached macroeconomics.

The white van economy is an economy that is based entirely on transitoriness. There are a few ways this manifests, and its consequences interpolate and accumulate. To give just 3 examples:

Our products are transitory. They are transported from across the world, to be transported into warehouses, to then be transported to a house, where it has a transitory lifespan before being transported somewhere else, often to be discarded.

Our building is transitory. Land is often seen as an asset to exploit rather than a gift to maintain. That the land should transition into something else. Developers transact to acquire land, build buildings from parts which are transported from all over, transition responsibility onto contractors and workers, who travel from all over to build buildings which could transpire from anywhere. The whole building system then travels to repeat the ‘transformation’ cycle elsewhere.

Our services are transitory. We have become a delivery service economy in many respects. Everything depends upon the road network working and upon white van deliveries. We deliver everything we haven’t produced and produce little ourselves. This applies beyond economics into the personal realm. Into everyday routine. A day that may have looked like:

• Wake up

• Make some food

• Walk to work

• Craft something there

• Eat lunch made by someone there

• Continue building

• Walk to the pub with craft ale

• Walk home for dinner

• Get something from the local shop

• Rest

Can very easily transition into:

• Wake up

• Eat some food

• Travel to work

• Provide services at work

• Get a takeaway lunch

• Get something delivered to help with work

• Travel home

• Get some food delivered at home

• Arrange a grocery delivery for tomorrow

• Watch Netflix to unwind (an online service)

It’s little wonder our roads are filled with vans, transit vehicles, small and big lorries, HGVs, etc. These vehicles are not personal vehicles. They are impersonal ‘service’ vehicles. And impersonal service is the backbone of the white van economy. I dub it the ‘white van’ economy because white vans are the most manifest and common example. White vans are also anonymous, impersonal, large, noisy and quietly imposed. The anonymous white van is what our service dependent economy depends on. How could a ‘transit’ system of next-day deliveries dependent on a transit fleet not become transitory by nature? A transitory workbase, in constant transit, transporting temporary products to houses and buildings that could have been transposed from anywhere. The transitory nature of the white van economy is baked in.

The result is a world of ‘wheels within wheels.’ Systems that deliver to other systems. One system supporting another system. Foxconn delivers to Amazon, who delivers to Whistl, who delivers to Barratt, who delivers to a contractor, etc. But the white van economy is an unusually unproductive one. It produces very little, apart from transitory houses. House building is the only thing keeping our entire economic system from implosion right now. Yet despite this, we do a very poor job of house building – another topic for another time. I will only say that a house is very different to a home. Britain is building the former, not the latter. Put another way, the white van economy is beige boxes on wheels, stuffed with beige boxes, delivering beige products to beige box houses.

Our white-van service economy is wholly dependent on the productivity of other countries - China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and so on. Note the word ‘productivity.’ A productive economy produces products. They produce tangible things of certain value. Not merely monetary value, but of technological, utilitarian, human value. For their own countrymen and others. Britain does not anymore. Anything we do produce (aeronautics, software, pharmaceuticals) are often for experts and or export. A widely service dependent economy will slowly become a stagnant, fragile, ailing, empty system. Britain’s economy entered a recession in Q3 of 2025, and grew 0.1% in Q4 of 2025. It is very likely the UK will enter a true recession (2 declining quarters) in 2026.

I contend this is because we mistake economic activity for economic value. The UK is very economically active, but produces little of anything with real value. It touches upon the topic of axiology. How we do we actually value things as humans? Why is gold worth more than straw? Why is a garden better than a concrete yard?

We have completely forgotten about the value of things beyond pounds and pence. Everything has become reducible to its monetary value on paper. But from my perspective, this approach slowly distorts the entire economy from one that produced:

• Wedgewood pottery

• Crafted furniture

• Country houses

• Public parks

• Iron ships

• Stone bridges

• The steam engine

To an economy that now provides:

• Logistical parks

• Imported ‘goods’

• Private new-builds

• Next-day delivery

• Imported trains

• Concrete bridges

• HS2

Economies are much greater systems than monetary policy or cash flow streams. Monetary value is of little value alone. Money alone does not guarantee a productive economy. It is no coincidence that heavily financial enterprises (crypto, stock, currency exchanges) are so volatile and fragile. In part because they don’t really produce anything. They exist largely to make money. And when that stops flowing, there’s not much to fall back upon.

Productive economies are produced by people’s choices; not by imposed ideas from experts, developers, brokers or economists. Economies are hopelessly unpredictable because they are shaped by human choice, something forecasts and calculations cannot really account for. What is valuable today won’t be tomorrow. People seem to consistently value things that are tactile, useful, personal, crafted, convenient and local. Yet these are concepts our economic system overlooks, ignores and doesn’t account for well, if at all. It is a colossal error. But there is hope. Of all place, economically erroneous Europe has an answer. Not in its economic system or structuring, but something more subtle and powerful.

Europe has something we do not. More people visit Europe each year than live inside Europe itself. Europe is a place of tourism and visitation. Britain is largely a place of importation and immigration. Why?

Because Europe is a place of beauty. Not that England has no beauty and Europe is only a place of beauty. That is not my point. My point is Europe understands that beauty has economic value. That beauty is a commodity. The British bureaucrat or politician doesn’t usually grasp this. Beauty is treated as a ‘policy obscuring’ concept in eyes of people like Angela Rayner. But policy does not produce value or worth. It only shapes the incentives of human behaviour and choices. And when those incentives are:

• Speed

• House numbers

• Profitability

• Jobs provided

Over:

• Sightlines

• Craftmanship

• Greenery

• Community

• Cultural context

The result is a quantitative, soulless result. I have a very concrete (pun intended) example from a little exercise I did.

Out of the 100 most expensive houses in Lancashire listed on Rightmove, 5 were modernist in style (and modernist (as opposed to modern) is usually ugly.) Beautiful homes hold their value over time. Ugly, efficient, convenient houses do not. Have a look yourself if you don’t believe me. This mindset of the material over immaterial, of numbers over place has not filtered into the national consciousness. Not yet. But it does demonstrate just how important the immaterial is over the material. Of beauty over equity. And until we grasp that, we’ll continue to be lost.