The article goes on to say, rightly, that there’s not much the gov’t can do about creating happiness (as oppsed to relieving misery), but it’s nice to see gov’t taking notice of work that’s been going on in economics for some time. Be nicer still to see more people able to follow Jefferson’s lead in shifting emphasis from “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property” to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I wonder what an economy based not on frentic accumulation and keeping up with the Joneses, but satisficing and satisfaction would look like. How might we lose the fear and misery, but hold on to the vibrancy?
[quote=“Christian Science Monitor”]New quest in British politics: public happiness
More illusive and harder to measure than wealth, ‘subjective well-being’ is the new hot-button issue.
LONDON - Once upon a time, the hot-button issue for politicians in rich countries was “the economy, stupid.”
But after decades in which Western nations have gotten richer but not necessarily happier, a new performance indicator – harder to measure and more elusive to deliver – is beginning to emerge.
Some simply call it happiness. The more scientific term is subjective well-being (SWB), a composite of factors including income, health, environment, relationships with friends and family, education, recreation, and faith.
Economists on both sides of the Atlantic believe they are getting good at measuring it, and now the political class in Britain is beginning to take it seriously.
“There has been no upward trend in happiness despite the fact that we are richer, healthier, and have longer holidays.” says Lord Richard Layard, an economist and advisor to the British government on happiness. “That is the challenge to government policy and to our own lifestyle.”
According to happiness rankings by the United Nations, European Union (EU), and magazines like the Economist, the top 5 is normally dominated by the likes of Norway, Iceland, Australia, Ireland, Denmark, and Switzerland. G-7 countries fare less well; Europe’s richest troika – Britain, France, and Germany – languish.
British politicians are starting to ask why. In Britain, surveys consistently show that people are no happier than they were 50 years ago, though incomes have tripled since the 1950s.
A poll last year found the proportion of people saying they are “very happy” had fallen to 36 percent today from 52 percent in 1957. Four in five people said government’s prime objective should be the “greatest happiness” not the “greatest wealth.”[/quote]