by Brian Douglass

Created on: August 18, 2008

Recently, I attended a presentation by the New Economics Foundation, a group in the UK which is an outgrowth of the teachings of E.F. Schumacher and other like-minded thinkers. TIt was given by Mr. Nic Marks, founder of the NEF center for well-being and sponsored by Coventry University's SURGE (sustainable regeneration) group.

The presentation was quite interesting and dealt with a number of issues that are rather "crunchy." One was a study by a Californian about the sources of happiness. 50% comes from either biological factors or childhood. Of the other 50%, the majority (40%) is made up of non-money factors (like "relationships, engagement, expressing yourself, healthy thinking"). It is only the last 10% where money may play any role at all. However, even here, the responsibility is shared with marital status. Money doesn't make people happy?!

He also mentioned some numbers that I have seen before. I'm not sure where they were now, but I believe they were in the papers. In the UK, while the GDP has gone up a very good bit (as has the standard of living), happiness has been flat since 1972. While GDP is used as a standard to compare countries, Mr. Marks' claim (which makes a good bit of sense) seems to be that it's not a very good measure if you actually want to know about people and not bank accounts.

There was also a slide ranking region and life satisfaction. All regions listed were 7.31 to 7.58, except for London, which scored a 7.08. In addition to the issue of it being an urban area, the speaker had brought up another issue previously, the role in awareness of income inequality on negative thinking. His comment at the time was addressed to the role of the media not only in being so negative, but also in making an issue of income inequality by showing the super rich (the Beckhams, for example) and the cult-like worship of them. In London, he pointed out, not only did residents have the media, but they could see it with their own eyes.

So, yes, GDP is a meaningless statistic. Our mothers taught us that money can't buy happiness, so why do we believe this to be when we call it "GDP growth"? The magic of fancy numbers and statistics isn't enough to change reality. Luckily for us, there are groups out there dedicated (in the face of stiff opposition) to finding ways to really help people. Work in the US is sadly lagging behind that being done in the UK. However, since this isn't really a "right-wing" of "left-wing" issue, I would hope that once awareness is raised that both parties will support funding of such research.

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