On the problem of trading short term pains for long term gains

In a speech to the house of Common several decades ago, Aneurin Bevan (British Labour Politician) described "the central problem falling upon representative government in the Western world as how to persuade the people to forgo immediate satisfactions in order to build up the economic resources of the country..." [quoted from Hall 1986: 281, originally quoted in Wilson, 1971: 19)