Can government improve our happiness? Can it at least measure how happy the people of a nation are and work toward improving it? The idea is being implemented, but not as some strange leftist diversion. The Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, has been interested in the idea since he first ran for the leadership of the Tory (Conservative) Party in 2005 and has elaborated on it several times. Now that he is the leader of Britain he has charged the Office of National Statistics to formulate the questions necessary to judge just how happy the British people are.
The “Wellbeing Project” is expected to report by 2012. The debate on the project’s importance has, naturally, already started.
Cameron has spoken quite eloquently on the need to have such an index as an important part of a nation’s policy. It has been known for a long time that there are times when economic growth comes at the expense of things that really make people happy – such as cheap oil coming from a terribly polluted Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money, and it’s time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB – general well-being,” he said.
“Well-being can’t be measured by money or traded in markets. It’s about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture and, above all, the strength of our relationships.
“Improving our society’s sense of well-being is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times.”
On a personal level, there is often a stark choice between economic security or income and happiness. From the Economist:
But sometimes people have the knowledge and the self-command to choose happiness, and they still fail to do so. That is the surprising finding of a recent study by Daniel Benjamin, Ori Heffetz and Alex Rees-Jones, three economists from Cornell University, and Miles Kimball of the University of Michigan. They persuaded hundreds of people to answer conundrums such as: would you rather earn $80,000 a year and sleep 7.5 hours a night, or $140,000 a year with six hours’ sleep a night?
About 70% of people said they would be happier earning less money and sleeping more. Likewise, almost two-thirds would be happier making less money and living close to their friends, rather than more money in a city of strangers. In response to another question, over 40% said they would be happier paying twice the rent to enjoy a shorter commute of ten minutes, rather than 45.
But is this really the job of government? Most of those who support the Prime Minister’s initiative agree that the most important part of the project is to include the concept of Wellbeing in the national dialogue. How individuals choose to exercise it is generally up to them, but the economy is not something that any one person really has control over. The standard workweek, for example, is known to make things difficult on working parents who want to have a strong presence in their children’s lives.
Those are the kind of issues that Cameron, for one, hopes to illuminate and make part of the national dialogue, influencing economic and work policy throughout the UK.
At this point there are far more questions than there are answers. I’d like to know what you think about this topic. Can the government at least provide insight into the overall Wellbeing of a nation through a survey, and if so what can or should be done about it?
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Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 
I can’t tell if this is a terrible idea or a great one. I think the proof will be in the pudding to sound all English about it.
It makes a lot of sense to think of more than consumption and all the other stuff we measure but I don’t know how you create a policy around making people happy. It seems very strange.
I certainly don’t want to take a strong stand at this time. It’s an interesting idea, but a survey? There has to be something else. I like putting this into a national dialogue but it’s awfully mushy. I know Cameron means it and wants to implement it well, but I could see this as a tool for nefarious action by other politicos later on. Dunno yet.
“Can it at least measure how happy the people of a nation are and work toward improving it?” There’s the question that struck me. How does one quantify ‘well being?” Is well being not a state-of-mind? Perhaps Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs…[Sigh]
This hasn’t proved to be a popular topic, but I’m still fascinated that it’s being discussed at all. According to one UK resident on twitter it’s not likely to go anywhere … which I get. But, yes, the idea of measuring well-being is a topic in itself. It seems that this naturally leads to equity in a society IF it can be measured and then maximized in any way at all.
Since Harry is getting married now I hopped on over to the Guardian. Their stuff on the school riots has been quite good. Hadn’t heard this idea, much more on the Big Society. When are you going to write about wikileaks?
William’s the one getting married – the heir. Not to be too picky.
I haven’t said much about wikileaks because I think we don’t know what it’s all about yet. This isn’t the first time that they have released stuff and I’m pretty sure that at least some of what got out was intended to get out – either as disinformation or an attempt to get some of our allies to stop screwing around. The latter could include all the Gulf States but really seems to apply to China vis a vis North Korea.
So I’m still not sure what the wikileaks has really done, and I don’t think anyone will know for a short while. A lot of the initial outrage probably was faked, after all.
Yes, I realize I’m a paranoid. But I think the people at the State Department, et al, are a little smarter than the wikileaks folks. An outlet like that is far too useful to ignore.
Well then this might interest you. “The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can learn from the New Research on Well-Being” by Derek Bok.
In it he writes “In contrast, (to GDP), happiness or satisfaction with life can lay claim to being not merely an end in itself but the end most people consider more important than any other …the results of happiness studies may be more reliable than many of the familiar statistics that legislators and administrators use in making policy.” Bok goes on to focus on specific empirically established sources of unhappiness: inadequate medical care, loss of employment, pain, sleep disorders.
He may state that Medicare resulted in greater happiness for the elderly. That wider effective use of opiate like substances can diminish pain. Bok also takes leaps in suggesting that employment at will policies are damaging. In the end he suggests the news media should do more to focus on the successes in government rather than concentrating on its failures. That the false belief that government never does anything good is a cause of citizen’s unhappiness. On first glance I tend to agree with Bok but then I often do of author’s I read.
Dan, that’s what I’m talking about! It’s an interesting under-current that we may hear more about in the future – especially as the traditional source of all happiness in the USofA, imported plastic stuff, becomes more expensive.
I thought I’d put it out there to see what people thought. It’s either a serious yawn, far more “wooly” than Cameron thinks, or I’m waaay ahead of the curve. (prolly want to go with curtain #2 on that one, Dan …)
U R on MNPOST again. Please return to this topic as it is basically what some of classical philosophy/is all about. You and I are both right and on similar tracks TA DA! This question about GNP abounds in the US because we may be less statist (?) and certainly more tax adverse so our policy has always been to rely on growth. Don’tg mean to be Club of Romish here but in reading to of the PPress syndicated columnists I tend to Friedman over Brooks (he has ideas but is souding more and more like Will an apologist for the GOP. Derek Bok’s wife also just came out with her own book on happiness. I wish I had an extra $75 to spend on 3 books.
Hey, *I* thought it was a good topic, but it’s just not catching on. I’ll think about how to re-phrase this and pick it up again. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can get something going on MinnPost – why not, they’ve been kind to me (I think Barataria has been picked up 17 times now!).
I dunno, I think MNPO readers tend to be a little more hard bitten and partisan. This is an old and oft repeated line of mine but focus on one brick instead of bricks and mortar. Often I tend to be scattershot. For example the use of opiate like substances, there is both a very dark and a very light lining here. People do suffer unneccesarily from pain, but where is the line and what is the danger of addiction? I have a nephew with this issue. And so many things are incremental 2 steps forward 1 step back with some unintended consequences.
We (my family and I) struggle with this, my kid wants to go to the U of Pennsylvania as he is an high achiever (probably just like you were at C. Mellon U) What is the role of expectations? I worry because my brother went to a nationally ranked liberal arts college but dropped out when he became dissillusioned in the early 70’s.
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