I blogged last year about the Happy Planet Index, a seemingly promising way of measuring propserity. Here’s Nic Marks, who started the Centre for Well-Being at the New Economics Foundation, making an impassioned case for the metric in a TED talk:
Efforts like Marks’ remind us that other worlds are possible, but that our conception of prosperity affects our ability to get there. Most of his focus on the costs of well-being lies on CO2 and climate change. He does take some swipes at consumption-oriented society, but it seems that Marks’ aim is to move the mainstream.
The “Happy Planet Index” is a ripoff of the “Gross National Happiness (GNH)” which was coined about 40 years ago.
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Can’t argue with the concept that educated is better than illiterate; health is better than illness; community is better than loneliness; clean is better than dirty; generosity is better than selfishness; love is better than hate and ignorance is bliss (kidding about that last one).
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But I suspect the happiness measures he graphs. Way too subjective, vague and complex to be the basis for action. I’m still waiting for the world to understand “monetary sovereignty,” a much simpler concept.
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Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
I agree on the happiness measure- I think something like the Human Development Index, but with the same discounting for environmental degradation, would be appropriate. That said, I’m glad there is a growing audience of folks who are thinking in this way.