The United Nations Embraces the Economics of Happiness

The meet­ing marks the launch of a global move­ment to shift our focus away from mea­sur­ing and pro­mot­ing eco­nomic growth as a goal in its own right, and toward the goal of measuring—and increasing—human hap­pi­ness and qual­ity of life.

Not just for dreamers

Some may say these 650 world lead­ers are dream­ers, but they are the sort that can make dreams come true. The meet­ing began with an address by Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan, where the gov­ern­ment tracks the nation’s “Gross National Happiness”:

The time has come for global action to build a new world eco­nomic sys­tem that is no longer based on the illu­sion that lim­it­less growth is pos­si­ble on our pre­cious and finite planet or that end­less mate­r­ial gain pro­motes well-being. Instead, it will be a sys­tem that pro­motes har­mony and respect for nature and for each other; that respects our ancient wis­dom tra­di­tions and pro­tects our most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple as our own fam­ily, and that gives us time to live and enjoy our lives and to appre­ci­ate rather than destroy our world. It will be an eco­nomic sys­tem, in short, that is fully sus­tain­able and that is rooted in true, abid­ing well-being and happiness.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cited Aristotle and Buddha in call­ing for the replace­ment of our cur­rent eco­nomic sys­tem with one based on hap­pi­ness, well-being, and com­pas­sion. “Social, eco­nomic, and envi­ron­men­tal well-being are indi­vis­i­ble” he said.

President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica fol­lowed with a keynote speech that pro­vided an expla­na­tion of why her coun­try is one of the worlds most eco-friendly and happy nations, despite its rel­a­tive poverty. Decades ago, Costa Rica elim­i­nated its army, pri­or­i­tiz­ing spend­ing on a strong edu­ca­tion pro­gram, sup­port for social secu­rity, and the pro­tec­tion of national parks that spur tourism.

From Finland to France, Israel to India, speak­ers of par­lia­ment, min­is­ters of the envi­ron­ment, and other high-level offi­cials fol­lowed with brief speeches about the need for a new eco­nomic par­a­digm to replace the cur­rent econ­omy. The after­noon fea­tured Vandana Shiva, Martin Seligman, John Helliwell, Lord Richard Layard, Jeffrey Sachs and other luminaries.

Helliwell, Layard and Sachs intro­duced the World Happiness Report, a study they pre­pared for the con­fer­ence. The report found that money and eco­nomic growth have a rel­a­tively weak cor­re­la­tion to hap­pi­ness; hap­pi­ness is much more strongly asso­ci­ated with things like com­mu­nity engage­ment, hav­ing lots of friends, doing work you love, and feel­ing a sense of trust in oth­ers. Altruism, too, is essen­tial; a world that makes equity, care, and com­pas­sion more pos­si­ble will be a hap­pier world. As the authors write:

The real­i­ties of poverty, anx­i­ety, envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, and unhap­pi­ness in the midst of great plenty should not be regarded as mere curiosi­ties. They require our urgent atten­tion, and espe­cially so at this junc­ture in human his­tory. …if we act wisely, we can pro­tect the Earth while rais­ing qual­ity of life broadly around the world. We can do this by adopt­ing lifestyles and tech­nolo­gies that improve hap­pi­ness (or life sat­is­fac­tion) while reduc­ing human dam­age to the environment.

Over the next two days, more than 200 peo­ple stayed to par­tic­i­pate in work­ing groups to dis­cuss turn­ing global hap­pi­ness met­rics into a real­ity. They pre­sented their rec­om­men­da­tions on the third day. These included plans for an inclu­sive move­ment, forg­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion mate­r­ial for all audi­ences, col­lab­o­ra­tive devel­op­ment of the met­rics for hap­pi­ness, the for­ma­tion of a UN hap­pi­ness com­mis­sion, and the inclu­sion of hap­pi­ness and well-being as a UN Millennium Development Goal.

The meet­ing ended with a pre­sen­ta­tion by Susan Andrews, who is devel­op­ing a met­ric for mea­sur­ing well-being in Brazil. Brazilian youth, she explained, had been trained to con­duct hap­pi­ness sur­veys and taught to prac­tice altru­ism and com­pas­sion. Neighbors had at first rejected the youth, but later embraced their efforts to mea­sure the hap­pi­ness of their com­mu­nity. The project cul­mi­nated in the cre­ation of community-based activ­i­ties that are chang­ing neigh­bor­hoods for the better.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at YesMagazine.org.