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Struggling to Find Happiness in the Age of Austerity
We’re fed up, teed-off, mad as hell. And we’re not going to take it any more.
At Occupy Wall Street, a sign of intemperate times: President Obama laughing with various prominent politicians during a snowstorm.
(John Minchillo/AP) But whoa.
While protests burst national boundaries and a wave of anger roils across the world, there’s a growing urge to measure national happiness, well-being and what people like about their lives.
Given the current sour mood, experts say, that could be a good thing.
If we know what makes people happy, it should be easier to know what plunges them into countrywide malaise.
So governments from tiny Bhutan to giant China, France, Britain, Bolivia, the U.S. and Canada are poring over statistics in the hope of finding the key to national content. An idea that might warrant a cynical shrug as economic indicators slither south and jobs follow.
Can we find happiness in the age of austerity?
“Some may wonder whether it is opportune to talk about well-being, rather than just focusing on the economic growth needed to get our countries out of this crisis,” says Angel Gurria, chief of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. “I strongly believe that . . . we have to consider a broader picture in our policy-making because a ‘growth as usual’ approach is simply not enough.”
Not, it seems, for the protesters.
“The reason the happiness and well-being agenda is getting a lot of traction is the sense that we need a new paradigm,” says Carol Graham of the Brookings Institution in Washington, hailed as a pioneer in the field of “happiness economics” and author of The Pursuit of Happiness. “The old economic model has failed.”
To pinpoint what’s going wrong — or right — the OECD has published a supersize survey titled “How’s Life,” analyzing statistics from the organization’s 34 wealthy and rising countries and a sampling of others.
It’s based on 11 indicators that resonate from Australia to Zimbabwe: income, jobs, housing, health, education, environment and personal security. Add in governance, social relationships and work-life balance and the picture becomes even sharper.
Or does it?
The study highlights daily moods, factors that lead to satisfaction and the ways in which people throughout the world assess their quality of life. But its findings show that the interplay of mood and well-being is tricky.
Surprisingly, China — the world’s roaring economic dragon — has the lowest life satisfaction on the chart, on par with stagnant Hungary and financially challenged Portugal (though far poorer countries left off the survey may well be more miserable). But when it comes to mood, or “affect balance,” the Chinese are close to the top (85.4), above middling Canadians (82.4).
“Life satisfaction captures people’s reflections on how their life is going overall,” Conal Smith, of the OECD’s statistics directorate, explains of the difference between the measures. “People tend to take into account material items and their view of how their life ‘could’ or ‘should’ be relative to others.
“By contrast, affect balance is based on what emotions people experienced on the previous day. (It) captures how people actually felt rather than how they assess their lives.”
Unexpected results on happiness have turned up in other surveys. In the United States, Princeton University economics professor Angus Deaton found smiley faces were as plentiful at the end of troubled 2010 as in the beginning of 2008, before the global meltdown.
At the same time, downward mood swings were larger than expected. And, Deaton discovered, feelings of well-being “tracked” along with the stock market indicators — even though most Americans don’t invest in equities.
“Listening to the news, you might be forgiven if you thought stock market performance was linked to reality,” scoffs David Rothkopf, author of the forthcoming book Power Inc. “Markets are oceans of teeming emotions that make the average hormone-infused high school look calmly rational, and much of the ‘data’ that moves markets is just bunk,” he wrote in the New York Times.
But in spite of the seeming inconsistencies of polls, analysts are finding that the broader the measures of well-being, the better the connection with how we really live.
The OECD admits its widely acclaimed report on public well-being has challenges. “The first is that what drives people’s life satisfaction may be ethically objectionable or affected by personal circumstances to which individuals adapt, even if that is not objectively good,” it says. A life of crime may be a joy ride for drug dealers, while poor peasant farmers are content with simply owning a bicycle.
Nor is it clear whether “subjective views are truly measurable,” because the questions may be understood differently by people with different standards.
Although the study admits it’s early yet to assess the effects of the current economic crisis, tens of thousands of people are voting with their feet, including those in seemingly upbeat Canada, Sweden and Finland. Some 82 countries have joined in, with crowds ranging from thousands to one lone protester on the Alaskan tundra.
“We’re in a state where discontent is just coming to the fore,” says Graham. “It’s not an organized movement yet, and it’s hard to tell whether it will spread or fizzle out like some others. But this is the moment when the agenda (of well-being) can move forward faster. In a booming economy it would be dismissed by conservatives as left-wing.”
In fact, governments — like protesters — are catching on that bare financial statistics and “hard facts” aren’t enough to diagnose national ills. But are they listening to the voices from the street — or to the analysts of well-being in academia?
“There’s a scary lack of awareness up to now in government and (among) average citizens,” Graham says. “In America there’s a strong sense of living in a land of opportunity. The idea that individual work gets you ahead lasted longer than our system was able to promise. It’s time for a recalibration.”
In the meantime, protests are swelling. And people are flocking to share their grievances. It may even make them happier.
- Posted in
39 Comments so far
Show All"The idea that individual work gets you ahead lasted longer than our system was able to promise. It’s time for a recalibration.”: first of all, time to re evaluate and then chuck the protestant work ethic--Life is to be LIVED and not worked away into oblivion; next, and as a result of the former, chuck the "American Dream" and relish the idea of community, small IS beautiful and the "Economics of Happiness". Finally, learn from indigenous people in building Life enhancing ways: RED ALERT, by Daniel Wildcat.
Although Amurkins may pay lip service to "simplcity", etc. they are wired to their manifest destiny heritage and the drive to perpetuate it.
Politicians like Jimmy Carter, Jerry Brown and others who advocated small being beautiful were shown the exit by voters.
There is something to be said for simplifying, but this article seems to be equating simplifying with a happy, happy joy, joy acceptance of the status quo, quit your birching and smile while you slave attitude.
As Bob Dylan said on the song "Maggies' Farm," "they say sing while you slave but I just get bored."
There is a point to be being unhappy and pissed off when you are being screwed by an economic/power elite hierarchy.
Indeed. We should get angry enough to eradicate the current global virus of globalized capital and replace it with something much, much better. The models are there if we care to look.
We could begin with a novel idea: demanding that our representatives stop being whores and begin to represent the interest of those that elected them, not their k street pimps. Picketing their visits home with "appropriate" signage might be one activity to help these A holes begin to get the message.
Then is then; now is now. People were wrong and are most definitely coming to appreciate that fact. Look at the Green Movement; look at the Simplicity Movement; look at the Slow Movement, and now look at the Slow Money Movement. There is the Transition Town movement. They all have something to say in terms of behavior to all kinds of people. Why are all of these groups growing and germinating yet more new movements everyday? People have learned their lessons and are still learning. If that were not true, it is doubtful that there would be Occupy movements. People are also learning about the importance of their environment, about the importance of the local economy, and the importance of community. Many of these things were obvious to people a generation or two back, but the later generate lost touch and turned their backs on their neighbors and friends. They were chasing the almighty dollar. But this happened in part because people were sidetracked and brainwashed. They understood how Tokyo Rose was a threat but not Fox News. Now people are coming to understand how and why they were brainwashed. Today things are changing for a reason. Why? Because it pays. Pure and simple.
All of the fluff words in the article above need to be translated into factual, easily understood, and measurable conditions such as life span, mortality, health and safety, clean and healthy air and water, safe working conditions, liveable wages, retirement , and the like. People will have much less trouble handling such issues today. They have been learning the hard way.
It is estimated that prior to the arrival of the Europeans here on the West coast of Canada, the average "work week" for the First Nations people to acquire all the food and shelter they needed to live was 10 hours.
Wow. Do you have a citation for that research/study/report? Thanks.
I would have to dig it up. Just keep in mind that the West Coast of Canada was one of the richest areas in the world for sources of food for human consumption. The streams were filled with Salmon (which could be dried smoked and kept) . The forests with any manner of berries and other wildlife. The shorelines with things like clams.
The Fraser river itself was the greatest Salmon bearing stream in the world with tens of millions swimming up it each year.
It was not a consumer society wherein goods were made just to throw away and keep the economy going. ( which is what we have become) and they did not have to labor on the behalf of a Lord and Master who would take the fruit of all their labor for himself.(Which is what the peasants in Europe , Russia and China all had to do)
Nature did the work.
I am pretty certain I read this in one of our local museums. My head fills up with such information.
Too bad the appearance Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) virus will virtually guarantee the extinction of the myriad native salmon species from Alaska to California.
Thank you, Corporate Open Net Atlantic Salmon Stocked Fish Farms!
And a big shout out to Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (the notorious DFO) for knowing about this potential and now realized disaster for years, but being unwilling to do anything about it!
true, donny-don, think about it; the guys fished, hunted, danced and told stories to the kids, the women farmed together, cooked together, flirted with the dancers, watched over and told stories to the kids...and white man thought he could improve on that?
One very good resource that you might investigate would be the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC). They had (hopefully still do with updates) a study group which to quote them directly: "promotes critical discussion about the impact on local cultures of industrial development and economic globalization while supporting policies and local strategies for ecological restoration and community renewal." **********************************International Society for Ecology & Culture (ISEC)
Address POBox 9475
Berkeley, CA 94709
Voice (510) 548-4915
Email infousa@isec.org.uk
Web http://www.isec.org.uk*********************
Also check out : www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/about-isec
Yes. One of the myths of capitalism has been that it reduces human toil. The Overworked American :The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, Juliet B. Schor.
That's not surprising. Anthropologists calculated the work week of the hunter-gatherer Kung San people of the Kalahari at 15-20 hours. They've lived that way for thousands of years, in a desert no less. http://anthro.palomar.edu/subsistence/sub_2.htm
If our economy were based on a steady state model and produced goods meant to last, not disposable junk that winds up in the garbage patches in the ocean, we'd likely be doing just fine. 15-20 hours should be enough for any human being to eat and have shelter. Beyond that would be for achieving something, and goodness knows people have dreams.
Is that all there is to an economy, to a society, to living among others, is that all there is, then let's break out the booze and have a ball.
The Roman historian Livy thought that affluence was the downfall of the Roman Republic - that prior to this time Roman citizens, hard working and frugal, had been an admirable people - as admirable or more than any he was personally aware of, but that now, as he wrote in their time of affluence:
"We are in love with death both individual and collective." (Livy)
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The 82 year old evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson has another book coming out in April - "The Social Conquest of Earth", about his new paradigm changing theory - that eusocial societies, like the ants' and humankind's', are genetically programmed. The book is apparently wide-ranging, ultimately addressing the questions that Wilson calls "the most fundamental of philosophy and religion - 'Where did we come from, what are we, and where are we going?' " (from 'The Atlantic', 'The Evolution of E.O. Wilson', by Howard French, November 2011.)
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Personally, as a rather late blooming mountaineer (full-time for seven years), there isn't a doubt in my mind that a life lived close to danger and outside, in the natural world, as opposed to the complexity of the contrived social world, is an integral part of being human. That without this counterbalance to our also natural instincts for group living and social hierarchy, which Wilson thinks an evolutionary way to protect the group, we are, in effect, mentally unstable.
Which is why I love both the city and the wild places - simultaneously.
Too often, I find, we embrace a too compartmentalized method of analysis, when in actuality many things are alive and well, and all operating at the same time, often out of our immediate awareness.
To get back to the main question of the article - austerity is in my opinion, a necessary precondition to happiness. However, I have never been at ease with social scientists, so called, or their often narrow definitions of happiness.
The Bolivians call it 'Bien Vivir', or living well, rather than merely having more.
If we cannot learn this, ramp down growth, and simultaneously increase happiness, we will burn this planet to the ground, with us in it. The insects, many bacteria and archaea, along perhaps with the jellyfish, will likely do well - and what in the world would be the answer then to Gaugin's questions?
Manysummits
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This is an interesting story within a book on political philosophy I'm currently reading. I thought I would share it and would especially like to hear what people think about it.
"Two brothers deeply attached to one another had a strange habit. They marked the nature of the day's events with pebbles a white one for each happy moment and a black one for each moment of misfortune or displeasure. But when, at the end of the day, they compared the contents of the jars one found only white pebbles and the other only black.,
Fascinated by the persistence with which they lived the same experience differently, they both agreed to ask the advice of an old man famed for his wisdom. "You don't talk to one another enough" said the wise man, "Both of you must give the reasons for your choice, and discover its causes". From then on they did so, and soon discovered that while the first remained faithful to his white pebbles and the second to his black ones, in neither jar were there as many pebbles as before. Where there had been about thirty there were hardly more than seven or eight.After a short while they went to see the wise man again. Both looked extremely miserable. "Not so long ago," said one, "my jar was filled with pebbles the colour of the night. My despair was unbroken; I continued to live, I admit, only through the force of habit. Now I hardly ever collect more than eight pebbles, but what these eight signs of misery represent has become so intolerable that I cannot go on like this." And the other said: "Every day I piled up white pebbles.. Today there are only seven or eight, but these obsess me to the point that I cannot recall these moments of happiness without immediately wanting to relive them more intensely and, in a word, eternally. This desire torments me". The wise man smiled as he listened to them. "Excellent. Things are shaping up well. Keep at it. And one thing: whenever you can, ask yourselves why the game with the jar and the pebbles arouses so much passion in you."
When the two brothers next saw the wise man it was to say "We asked ourselves the question but we could not find the answer. So we asked the whole village. You can see how much it has disturbed them. In the evening. squatting in front of their houses, whole families discuss the black and white pebbles. Only the elders and chieftains refuse to take part. They say a pebble is a pebble, and all are of equal value." The old man didn't conceal his pleasure. "Everything is developing as I foresaw. Don't worry. Soon the question will no longer be asked: it has lost its importance, and perhaps one day you will no longer believe you ever asked it."
Shortly afterwards the old man's predictions were confirmed in the following way: a great joy overcame the members of the village; at the dawn of a troubled night, the rays of the sun fell upon the heads of the elders and chieftains, impaled upon the sharp-pointed stakes of the palisade.
The Revolution of Everyday Life:
The Reversal of Perspective
by Raoul Vaneigem "
Interesting tale. Thanks for posting it.The joy will be short-lived. The leaders had it right, and for that, they get their heads impaled on stakes.Then it begins again.Makes me want to read Camus' "Neither Victims Nor Executioners" again.
You wholly missed the point of the parable that the chieftains were the CAUSE of the misery. That is why the people rose up against them as is happening now all over the world.
not just misery
but the whole of how the two brothers and the village lived, misery and happiness,/p>
what they wanted was reality, their own reality, not reality as dictated by other people
and this is what the happiness in austerity article is doing, telling people how to feel and live
It's telling people that happiness is something that can come from comparison to ideals and expectations set by other people, We achieve happiness when we achieve material and social goals. All we need to be happy is change our material and social expectations.
I say just leave people alone to live their own lives unconstrained by masters and oppressive cultural mores.
Hey. People make mistakes collectively and individually. But they also learn. That includes learning from their mistakes. Who reading the above would not admit to making mistakes?
"So governments from tiny Bhutan to giant China, France, Britain, Bolivia, the U.S. and Canada are poring over statistics in the hope of finding the key to national content. An idea that might warrant a cynical shrug as economic indicators slither south and jobs follow."
A poll showed that Puerto Rico, with its overcrowding and crime, is supposed to have the happiest people. Switzerland with its direct democracy, few natural resources and highest per-capita income is supposed to have the best government. Reconcile their characteristics and Bhutan's environmental consciousness and happiness index and the world could be a happier place.
But how can the world be happy when nature is not whole? And how can it be whole when Mammon rules? The oligarchy's solution--take anti-depressants to turn us into corporate robots while they turn the world into a wasteland.
Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow, eh?
“There’s a scary lack of awareness up to now in government and (among) average citizens,” Graham says. “In America there’s a strong sense of living in a land of opportunity. The idea that individual work gets you ahead lasted longer than our system was able to promise. It’s time for a recalibration.”
Well, maybe that scary lack of awareness in government—as to our happiness, I suppose—is a sign. If I read the entrails correctly, I don’t think they care. As Chris Hedges wrote a year or so back, the shift is from Brave New World’s mindless, pneumonic world of a-musement to something that looks increasingly and overtly sinister. Be careful what you say!
It surely is time, past time, for a recalibration, and a real change in what we value and expect from life will change. No doubt the media will be fast at work on this one to contain the growing unrest, either by palliation or fear. People are finally waking up to the fact that their lives and well-being does not factor into the game plan, and it will be interesting to see how thing play out. Well, interesting in the sense of “may you live in interesting times.”
I gave my students a reading from Friedman’s Flat World last week, which tells them—many of them for the first time—that the globalization of work has greatly altered their prospects in the corporate world. I don’t know which is worse, that they were unaware of this pattern or that they seem defenseless against it.
Is this (article) some sort of test? Is CD preparing to join up with Arianna Huffington or Oprah or some other completely irrelevant and insubstantial pop-culture demi-god?
I recently had a bout of pneumonia and was hospitalized for four days. It was a constant struggle for every breath. When I recovered enough to go out for a walk in the desert (I live in northwest Arizona) I was overcome with joy. The air was so fresh and everything I saw was a beautiful gift. I believe in order to be happy, one must face death.
By that yardstick, I am ecstatic every single day.
People can't be happy about this international depression unless they're filthy rich or psychopaths or both. What kind of silly reportage is this.? Please apparently mainstream jouralism is "the opiate of the people" to keep them under control of the one per cent.
"Well it's sundown on the union
And what's made in the USA
Sure was a good idea
Til greed got in the way." -- Bob Dylan, Union Sundown
When colonists first came to America centuries ago they were enthralled with the whole idea that, after an agreed upon period of indentured tenancy, they could own what they produce and barter their produce at the local free market for needed goods and services. It was very simple and relatively lucrative, compared with the minimum wage jobs most Americans suffer with today. The Industrial Revolution and Corporate Capitalism have ruined the freedom and prosperity of that former era.
Today, I've begun a novena to St. Jude for a new vocation and home that might bring back the best of that former era.
Luke 12:15 "And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. "
This is the solution to the animosity felt by both sides towards the other. The proof of this statement is that neither side will even consider its truth. The capitalists will thnk it's some Marxist manifesto and the occupy protesters will say its just so much tea party-neocon propaganda to justify their taking what should be rightrfully belong to the other 99%.
How about keeping your mouth shut and just being happy with what the man gives you--after all who are you to be greedy. Or in the case of drugs, "Just say no." Or a wife's place is in the home. And all the other nonsense solutions to real problems.
First of all, people want protection from the vagarities of life while they pursue their other wants and needs. They want steady food, a warm bed, safety from attack, safety from diseases. Achieving this goal involves an honest chance at a steady career, which lots of American people simply don't get.
After this, some people think that they want to party or to chase and bag a lover, or they think that they want a baby or three. That's what they all say that they want. Lots and lots of people are disappointed with these wants and some people are happy.
Some people are dreamers. They want their dreams. Dreams can take years of living on the edge, sometimes with zero cans of food in the cupboard. They can take all of a person's time, energy and money. Some dreams fail but some succeed.
Do you want the people around you to be happy? Form a hive of people with a fair trade operating agreement among you:
-- Every person is a resource, and so unemployment is a crazy idea. If anyone is unemployed and wants to work, the hive will find them a minimum of internal work. If anyone is overworked by life or by taking a rough outside job, the hive will try to cut down that person's in-hive workload and stress load. Every hive of people is going to have some in-hive cooking work, mass purchase of basic foodstuffs work, laundry work, paramedic work, gardening work (a pretty low-stress job), child care and give-new--moms-a-break work. There is no retirement for seniors, just a natural work load reduction. Nor is there teenage unemployment due to inexperience, only apprenticeships.
--Given mass unemployment, the hive will consider setting people up in multi-person "export" small businesses with sales outside the hive. Often people need an apprenticeship outside, but once a business is established it can hire several hive members.
--No, individuals can't goof off. Pay is determined by the total quality and value of the work done. A work committee has to periodically determine pay, layoffs and other issues.
--People have dreams and will still starve for them. The work committee has some input on when the community needs to support the individual and when the individual seems to be overreaching for that dream.
--People build up equity in the hive itself. It's a retirement fund. People who wantonly destroy housing and equipment or who build up hive political fights lose some or all of their equity in retirement. Serious honesty is needed on the work committee to avoid petty political retribution through personal backbiting.
--New people can be added, but they have to work their way in. Gentle ways of getting in, such as sharing meals, are encouraged.
--The hive as an operating unit can split in half when it gets too large, with an overhive committee. The larger the community, the safer and happier its individual people become.
--There will always be pragmatists and fundies on political issues. The hive agrees that the two groups should not split the hive.
A happiness index? Really? What is so hard to figure out? As corporations and the 1% continue to pillage the earth of its very limited resources everyone knows that it’s leading to irreversible ecological catastrophe. What kind of hope for a future is that to leave for the next generations? As the planet becomes distressed, so too does its inhabitants. The first casualties are happening now; the hundreds of animal species that we lose every day. The initial reaction in people is usually despair, but eventually, when the younger generations realize that they have lost too much and have nothing more to lose – there will be hell to pay.
Happiness is a pocket full of politicians that will do your bidding and improve your pecking order and loot within the 1%? Did I miss something?
People want social and economic justice - one is not possible without the other.
They want to be free of the worry about how they are going to afford the necessitates- healthcare, education for their children and a retirement without financial hardship.
These are things that government should provide out of tax money paid by the people.
Not war, and bank bailouts, funding foreign governments, and regime change.
Government as gotten carried away with itself.Forgotten who it should be answering too. Not highly paid lobbyists, but the people! The 99%!
A simple solution is publicly funded elections.
Their are no special interests, just the peoples interests.
(Refer to above.)