Sunday, Jan 10, 2010
GDP is yesterday's measure
Observer: Economists start to consider that money can't buy happiness
Everyone out sledging today? Article about the damage of economic growth to environment and our well-being.
Posted by letthemfall @ 12:28 PM (1649 views) Add Comment
29 Comments
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1. drewster said...
The UK-based New Economics Foundation produces what it calls the "Happy Planet Index".
Here are the top 25 happiest countries according to that index:
1. Costa Rica
2. Dominican Republic
3. Jamaica
4. Guatemala
5. Vietnam
6. Columbia
7. Cuba
8. El Salvador
9. Brazil
10. Honduras
11. Nicaragua
12. Egypt
13. Saudi Arabia
14. Philippines
15. Argentina
16. Indonesia
17. Bhutan
18. Panama
19. Laos
20. China
21. Morocco
22. Sri Lanka
23. Mexico
24. Pakistan
25. Ecuador
...
74. United Kingdom
...
114. USA
Does anybody else think that list looks a bit fishy? I'd rather aim for high GDP than aim to be more like Saudi Arabia (#13) or Pakistan (#24). Obviously the study didn't take into account the very high crime rate in places like Jamaica (#3).
2. enuii said...
It's all about expectations of life, a bit like the JD power car surveys of the 1980's which always threw up the buyers of pre-volkswagen skoda cars as the happiest with their purchases whilst those who had purchased 'luxury' brands were the least happy with their motors.
3. shipbuilder said...
That's true, it does depend on expectations of life and perhaps our conditioning by advertising and marketing and the consumerist culture, designed to have us permanently wanting more, means that we are less happy, or that we often miss what's important in life, putting material possessions and money above relationships and real experiences. Could it be that our wealth and technology actually doesn't make us happier - that's why it might look 'fishy'?
The point about high crime rates is interesting - it's not a matter of 'taking them into account' - the study monitors people, not statistics. With our culture of fear, could it be that our perception of crime is unrelated to actual crime levels?
The reason why this study looks 'fishy' is due to our own perceptions, our own misery conditioned by both commercial and government propaganda. We think we should be happier, but aren't - why is the question we should be asking.
4. shipbuilder said...
Everyone should know this little tale, particularly relevant here, I think - may explain people's disbelief of the list above -
"A few years ago, a very rich businessman decides to take a vacation to a small tropical island in the South Pacific. He has worked hard all his life and has decided that now is the time to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He is excited about visiting the island because he’s heard that there is incredible fishing there. He loved fishing as a young boy, but hasn’t gone in years because he has been so busy working to save for his retirement.
So on the first day, he has his breakfast and heads to the beach. It’s around 9:30 am. There he spots a fisherman coming in with a large bucket full of fish!
“How long did you fish for?” he asks. The fisherman looks at the businessman with a wide grin across his face and explains that the fishes for about three hours every day. The businessman then asks him why he returned so quickly.
“Don’t worry”, says the fisherman, “There’s still plenty of fish out there.”
Dumbfounded, the businessman asks the fisherman why he didn’t continue catching more fish. The fisherman patiently explains that what he caught is all he needs. “I’ll spend the rest of the day playing with my family, talking with my friends and maybe drinking a little wine. After that I’ll relax on the beach.”
Now the rich businessman figures he needs to teach this peasant fisherman a thing or two. So he explains to him that he should stay out all day and catch more fish. Then he could save up the extra money he makes and buy and even bigger boats to catch even more fish. The he could keep reinvesting his profits in even more boats and hire many other fisherman to work for him. If he works really hard, in 20 or 30 years he’ll be a very rich man indeed.
The businessman feels pleased that he’s helped teach this simple fellow how to become rich. Then the fisherman looks at the businessman with a puzzled look on his face and asks what he’ll do after he becomes very rich.
The businessman responds quickly “You can spend time with your family, talk with your friends, and maybe drink a little wine. Or you could just relax on the beach.”
5. rumble said...
Drewster, that list is odd. Doesn't seem to consider crime at all. Don't know when it came out, but Hondurans under house arrest happy?
6. shipbuilder said...
Rumble, did you read my post? More to do with perceptions of crime, I think - what's the use of a low crime rate if everyone believes there is a mugger, rapist or paedophile around every corner?
7. shipbuilder said...
Perhaps it isn't wealth that makes one happy, but what wealth brings - freedom, time, power over others?
Perhaps what the really rich crave from wealth - power - isn't really what the rest of us want?
Perhaps we don't actually need wealth to get what we do want - freedom and time?
Perhaps the system gets the rich what they want but deprives us of what we want?
Perhaps the system we have requires us to give up our freedom and time to work to provide the rich with their power?
Perhaps all of us can't be rich, after all?
Perhaps we've been sold a lie?
8. rumble said...
Shippy, agreed, except on crime. In a country with high crime rates people are very aware of it, through experience rather than stats, and constantly looking over one's shoulder definitely reduces happiness, though other factors may make up for it.
9. rumble said...
Sorry shippy, i'm out of sync, i hadn't read yours at my first post. In fact the UK doesn't have a low crime rate, if I remember correctly, it has a higher crime rate than south africa for example, but the crimes are less serious. South Africa has around 65 murders a day, depending on whose figures you choose - ranging from 18 000 to 40 000 a year.
Agree with you on ambition for material gain. Is it simply a matter of survival? The islander didn't have to do anything other than a bit of fishing to survive. In London...
10. shipbuilder said...
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/calculating/
Links to other pages that go into more detail about how it is measured, although I've no doubt many will be instantly dismissive.
Personally, I don't know enough to support or dismiss it, but I have long been of the opinion that life is more than monetary measures and profit - something else, the majority in fact, is missing. My personal well-being is not completely measured in terms of how much money I have, so why should a nation's?
11. shipbuilder said...
9. rumble said...
"Agree with you on ambition for material gain. Is it simply a matter of survival? The islander didn't have to do anything other than a bit of fishing to survive. In London.."
Move away from London?
12. rumble said...
Shippy, already doing recon. On a larger scale though, even if there were enough islands for everyone, some people do want more, those people want cities for their wants, with increased survival requirements.
"Perhaps the system we have requires us to give up our freedom and time to work to provide the rich with their power?"
Agreed, markets, they require the buy-in of the masses, which the masses do to satisfy magpie tendencies.
13. letthemfall said...
Good parable shipbuilder.
Looking at the list of happy countries, I'd imagine what they have in common is community and shared values; the ethos of helping one another and an emphasis on families. Their economies will also be a lot less unequal than the rich nations.
What is the driving motivation of the majority of people in the UK and US? To make money, to own a "desirable" house, a posh car (often a ridiculous 4x4 with that most risible of status symbols, a personalised number plate); to consume large amounts of fossil fuel sunning themselves in foreign countries, laughing with glee at the school gates at the cheapness of air fares (I've witnessed it); and then complain at tax rates, moan about the lazy workers and the undeserving poor, the rich telling anyone who cares to listen that they deserve every penny they earn because they word hard for it.
We all want enough money to live comfortably and I dare say I could do with a bit more, especially with the cost of housing in the SE. But I would vote for higher taxation if it were progressive, even if I had to pay more, in return for a fairer and less polluted country, a more gentle and pleasant community. Will we get it?
14. rumble said...
Out of date, but: crimes-per-capita
15. tenyearstogetmymoneyback said...
I've always been very suspicious of the GDP figures because it is so difficult to compare like with like, especially from year to year.
Using our Fisherman example, if he had a huge boat so he could catch loads of fish it would be likely that he would
drive the price down and / or make other fishermen unemployed.
What I think is very likely is the law of diminishing returns. People probably get no more pleasure from a 50" Plasma TV
than they got from a 12" B&W set back in the 1950s. On the car front a person in the GDR was probably as pleased to get
a Trabant as someone in West Germany was to get a Mercedes, and due to the inefficient manufacturing methods the
Trabant probably contributed as much to the GDR GDP as the Mercedes.
16. icarus said...
Happiness can't buy money either.
17. novice pete said...
I'm moving to Yemen.... probably be bombed by the yanks though ;-)
18. krustyatemyhamster said...
Money can buy economists that will say anything.
19. icarus said...
novice pete - don't worry. Look at the happy places @1. Most have either been bombed by the US or had dictatorships imposed on them by US foreign policy.
20. braindeed said...
letthemfall@13 said.....
We all want enough money to live comfortably and I dare say I could do with a bit more, especially with the cost of housing in the SE. But I would vote for higher taxation if it were progressive, even if I had to pay more, in return for a fairer and less polluted country, a more gentle and pleasant community. Will we get it?
No.......although who could argue with the heartfelt sentiment.
We are (and, becoming more so) a fearful, morally bankrupt nation.
Tax avoidance schemes,educational aparthied, unfettered immigration (to suppress the market value of the poorest, and increasingly more of the chattering classes), brutaly creeping neo-feudalism of the housing market, and an utterly clueless and almost corrupt political class.....I fear this green and pleasant land is slithering into an anarchic morass - the only variable will be an occasional deepening of the
gradient.
The elders on this forum have seen the best of this island (and much of the 'developed' world) - youth needs to open it's eyes......the only possible solution will be intellectualy sound radicalism, based on the lessons from Old Wien onwards.
In the meantime I've pissed in the wind too long - your turn young bucks.
.
21. icarus said...
krusty 18 - including "kiss goodbye to your money, it's locked away in kleptocrats' bank accounts. But don't worry money can't....."
22. novice pete said...
icarus@19 Good point, I didn't think of that.
23. goweresque said...
I wonder if there's any correlation between the amount the gvot spends (and taxes) as a percentage of GDP and where you are in the list?
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt - that people might be happier when they are responsible for their own lives, and not dependant of State largesse for their income, what ever that income might be? Perhaps its better to be a shack-living fisherman in Costa Rica than a benefit claimant in a council flat on some god forsaken estate in Sheffield (for example)? Despite having a much higher cash income, and alleged 'standard of living'?
24. voiceofreason said...
Of course the Kingdom of Bhutan has had the "Gross National Happiness" index for a while.
I just finished reading Tom Hodgkinson's "How to be Idle", which is one more in a centuries old series of works railing against the industrial revolution. An interesting follow up read will be Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".
25. rumble said...
Sunny, and relatively little media. I bet some of those countries are haven't noticed recent events.
26. sneaker said...
Socialism can't buy happiness.
It always ends in financial exhaustion.
You always end up regretting thinking you could endlessly spend other people's money on your own happiness.
27. clockslinger said...
Did anyone else spot the ubiquitous Danno Blanchflower named in this article as an economist who had spent years studying happiness and it's lack of connection with GDP? Well fu3k me hard! Is this the same Danny Blanchflower who kept the economy going at full pelt with interest rate cuts during the HP boom? This mans integrity knows no beginning! Should we now looking to Mr B for lessons in spiritual growth too?
However, this article is a fairly feeble rehash of a much better and far reaching piece by Geoge Monbiot in the comment and opinion section of The Guardian of 5th January (which, spookily refers to comments in a like vein by Lord Turner of FSA fame. Part of me worries that they are trying to soften us up for something!)
All that aside, this matter of epic significance far more deeply and eruditely considered by our forefathers. I honestly recommend going straight to the source and reading John Ruskin "Unto This Last", the seminal work on the heart of the issue of materialism and happiness;a book which inspired Ghandi and which, when we still had a democracy, was required reading for the best of that extinct breed of true OLD labour party socialists. It certainly compares very favourably ( and is a critique of ) the alleged "classics" by Adam Smith and J. S. Mill (and is a damn sight shorter and better read than either). I hope just one more soul has the pleasure of discovering it as a result of this suggestion!
28. clockslinger said...
Shipbuilder @ 7...I hoped you were going to write "Perhaps all of us CAN be rich...not in their terms but on far better ways" (a la Ruskin!)
29. shipbuilder said...
clockslinger - thanks for that - it will be one of my next book purchases.