Are you happy? I ask because the Government wants to know. And in the light of what your answer is the Government may change its policies to make you happier in the future.
That, at least, is the clear implication of a speech the Prime Minister has given. He has asked the Office for National Statistics to devise a way of measuring 'subjective wellbeing' (happiness to you and me) to sit alongside conventional measures of gross domestic product (national income) as a way of assessing progress. He said: 'It is high time we admitted that, taken on its own, GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country’s progress.'
Of course the idea that getting richer does not necessarily make you happier is hardly new. All religions preach it and most philosophers from Aristotle onwards have argued that living what he called the ‘good life’ didn’t have very much to do with how much you had to spend.
Modern democratic politicians, however, have tended to equate economic growth with life getting better for voters. There are obvious reasons for this. Politicians understand the relationship between the so-called ‘feelgood factor’ and voting intention and know that people tend to feel better when they have more money in their pockets. When an economy is growing politicians take the credit for it even when, as is often the case, it has very little to do with them. A growing economy makes it easier for a government to cut taxes or increase spending and they then ask the electorate to reward it for its largesse.
There’s a more fundamental reason too. Our whole capitalist system depends upon consumers being willing to spend. If we suddenly decided we were all going to stop spending because we were interested in other aspects of life, like staring at the sunset, then the whole system would come crashing down for lack of demand. We all have to be persuaded that keeping the engine of economic growth going is what really matters even though, as the Prime Minister reminded us, Robert Kennedy pointed out fifty years ago that GDP measures everything 'except that which makes life worthwhile'.
Mr Cameron gave several examples of how the heedless pursuit of economic growth can produce results which cut against what most people would regard as a happiness-inducing state of affairs. Cheap booze or irresponsible advertising to children may create profits and boost economic growth but at the expense of considerable personal and social harm. What he called an ‘immigration free-for-all’, pursued in the interests of promoting economic growth on the back of cheap labour, can create social strife.
What the Prime Minister wants from his new happiness index is not just a measure of how happy people feel but evidence that could 'lead to Government policy that is more focused not just on the bottom line, but on all those things that make life worthwhile'. In other words he wants Government policy to be affected by what he finds out about our happiness.
His problems will arise, though, if he discovers incompatibilities between the pursuit of economic growth and what makes us happy that are more fundamental than those which can be dealt with by, say, curbing immigration, raising the price of alcohol (which his government so far has proved unwilling to do) or regulating advertising to children. For he made it absolutely clear that he is not abandoning his commitment to faster economic growth. He said that remained his ‘most urgent priority’.
It is not hard to see how the two clash in ways that are very difficult, if not impossible to resolve. Take, for example, the issue of work/life balance. Some of us are lucky enough not to feel any conflict between the two because our work is so enjoyable that we regard it as an essential part of our life rather than something to be set against life. But many are not in such a fortunate position. The pressure is for more life and less work, more time spent with our kids and less at the office.
Governments have tried to heed this message, granting such things as increased paternity leave. But if they go much further they come against the problem of competitiveness. Employers at once protest that if governments legislate to allow workers more time off, then companies suffer in relation to foreign competition and economic growth is threatened. It would be fine if all other countries followed the same route, but getting agreement to that is nigh impossible. France’s experiment with a 35 hour week had to be abandoned.
Or take another example. Faster economic growth in developed countries over the last decade or so has produced widening inequalities. But there is a large body of evidence (marshalled by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their book The Spirit Level) to show that the more unequal societies grow, the unhappier they become. But it would be quite a turnaround if a Tory-led government suddenly became an advocate of direct government intervention to narrow income inequality. Even the last Labour government, which was supposed to believe in equality, presided over a period in which inequalities grew.
Perhaps the starkest challenge which the pursuit of happiness may pose to the pursuit of economic growth is the startling discovery that above an annual income of about £10,000 the marginal benefit in terms of wellbeing declines sharply in relation to the marginal cost of having to earn the extra money. In other words, if we all settled on an income of ten thousand a year we’d all be a lot happier. Somehow I fancy that if the new happiness index confirms that extraordinary finding, the Government won’t be rushing to implement policies to bring it about.
So sceptical commentators are not expecting huge changes in policy direction to flow from the new index. Hard-headed politicos close to No 10 are said to be worried that little practical will emerge from this innovation and, far from it being a happiness index, it will soon be regarded as a misery index to be used to bash the government round the head. The more learned among them may remember the observation of the Athenian statesman, Solon: 'Call no man happy until he be dead.'
But perhaps this is too cynical. Most people know that perpetual economic growth is not the route to happiness (never mind what it does to the planet on the way). Perhaps politicians should be applauded for acknowledging it too, even if the effect on policy turns out to be less than revolutionary.
What’s your view?
- Is it a good idea or not for the ONS to be asked to set up an index of subjective wellbeing?
- The ONS wants advice from the public about how to do so: what advice would you give?
- How much do you feel that the pressures to earn more money lead to you having a less happy life or do you think the two are compatible?
- How much income would you be prepared to forego in order to have a happier life?
- What measures do you think the government could take to make life happier for you?
- And do you think the new happiness index will become an important part of our national debate or do you think it will be forgotten as we continue to pursue ever more economic growth?
