We’re H.A.P.P.Y

THERE are occasions when the pages of WalesHome.org are used to advance contrarian views. Quite a lot of occasions, actually. In fact, we like it best that way.

Every now and again, however, we find ourselves swimming with, not against, the current of either popular or policy-maker opinion. Today might be counted as one of those days, with news that the Welsh Government is to introduce a new measurement of life satisfaction in addition to that of measuring progress by economic output, or GDP/GVA (The Western Mail has the story here).

It’s a step we wrote about last July, arguing then that it might make the case for the Assembly acquiring law-making powers more compelling:

There is nothing to prevent the Assembly from introducing its own index of Gross National Happiness (GNH) either independent of, or weighted by, GDP/GVA. What prominence it chooses to ascribe to this measure is entirely up for debate. A bold approach would be to declare this to be the primary measure of policy success, and dispense with simple GDP altogether. But this would be a politically difficult move in a period of negative GDP growth, and in an era in which Wales continues to get poorer relative to the UK as a whole. It would risk appearing as if the WAG wanted to do away with statistics that put its performance in a bad light.

Perhaps the way forward is therefore to introduce GNH alongside GDP, and begin to demonstrate the relationship, or lack of it, between the two. This would make it easier in the long run to develop policy approaches that opt for an increase in wellbeing over an increase in wealth, where those two ends conflict. If, as discussed last week, the main wellbeing driver is inequality (for which read income inequality), a robust measure of GNH will demonstrate the need for the Assembly to acquire the powers – either through redistributive taxation or through legislation to narrow the pay gap – to do something about it.

The full article is here and, if you’re looking for some new backreading, Derek Bok’s The Politics of Happiness may be worth a look.