Conflicts between the economic gains and the social opinions

Sometimes the interests between the economic growth and the social will contradict each other and the government may not have any strategy to satisfy one without hurting the other. When a country has to sacrifice one for having the other, how should the government make its decision in order to maximize the total social welfare at the moment as well as in the future?

We see many examples of how the economic interest conflicts with the social will. The most typical example is Brexit. The British population, especially the English and the Welsh population, is afraid of the border security and the job opportunities taken by foreigners. However, without having the access to the European single market system, Britain as a strong economy loses its opportunity to take advantage of the single market system, especially as it has the most advanced financial system in Europe, having the access to the single market can make Britain become the heart of the European market when most of the financial activities in Europe take place in London in Britain. This generates thousands of jobs in Britain and an enormous amount of incomes in the City.

Moreover, the economic growth usually distributes its incomes unfairly that the wealthier group becomes wealthier and the poorer group becomes relatively poorer though their incomes increase as well. Under such circumstance, the poorer group may maintain their previous situation without having increases in their incomes and widening their differences from the wealthy group.

Therefore, the conflict between the interests of the economic growth and the social will is often caused by the widening wealth gap, that forces the government to use more aggressive wealth redistribution policies domestically. But the government can have policies to encourage more economic activities and encourage firms to give out higher salaries by reducing corporate taxes. Therefore, it will be companies' interests to open business in the country and it can generate more incomes for the entire population while the incomes will be redistributed more equally among the population.