There is more to economic life than being a consumer, a point that Jeremy Browne seems to have overlooked. The starry-eyed enthusiasm for "restless change" based on consumer preferences ignores the growing inequalities and stresses of everyday working life for millions of people. The only freedoms to him that matter seem to be owning and spending, including the current fetish for property ownership. Unfortunately, many people are effectively excluded from owning homes and even find difficulty finding affordable rented accommodation near where their friends and family live. Any attempt to redress this maldistribution of resources is scoffed at, as it challenges the rigid orthodoxy of "the market".

In order to spend our money, we first have to earn a living, so consumer spending patterns either reflect income, or drive unaffordable debt as people attempt to copy their contemporaries - a natural human instinct. What happened to freedoms in the workplace and collective bargaining, or are we to believe that a supermarket worker(say)can increase their consumer purchasing power simply by negotiating alone with their boss?

I find the statement that the problem reflects "not poverty of income but poverty of ambition" insulting: very few actually choose to be poor, and many low-paid workers would dearly love to improve their situation if only they had the opportunity. Liberals should do more to help them - not the starry-eyed nonsense of extreme fame and fortune (only a tiny minority achieve this from humble origins) but by helping people achieve realistic ambitions through education, better promotion opportunities, workplace (trade union)organisation and, yes, a degree of redistribution.

The only legitimate intervention advocated by Jeremy Browne seems to be through education. He admits that this is "not the whole solution" and calls for more creative thinking, but obviously leaves it for others to do that. More differentials (and more inequality) between teachers - ENOUGH! There is little evidence that this helps in any workplace; it only demoralises those without the bonus and undermines teamwork.

The call for "more consumer responsiveness" should be balanced by social and environmental responsibility: there are environmental consequences for having more and bigger HGVs hurtling around the countryside and filling rubbish tips with last year's "must have", and there are profound social consequences for keeping workers on permanent tenterhooks, threats of involuntary relocation away from their families, and anti-social working patterns. We should learn that we are adults and not screaming toddlers demanding "me" and "now". We must re-learn the word "no", and that there is a reason for the word "no".

In all, I do not believe that a consumer-obsessed economic liberalism is fully compatible with social liberalism, and I contend that there are, indeed, overlaps between social liberalism and liberal socialism - after all, that was the origin of the SDP and merger that created our own party. And one day, we may have to deal with a socialist/social democratic party in a coalition government.