measurement of, well-being in recent years have emanated from the right. With Nicolas Sarkozy commissioning the‘ Stiglitz report’ in 2009 and David Cameron making a high-profile announcement about the measurement of‘ national well-being’ in the UK in 2010, one could be forgiven for thinking that well-being‘ belongs’ at the right of the political spectrum. However, to think this is to overlook the way in which a well-being approach also clearly supports the agenda of the left, in particular with reference to economic policy. In the words of commentator Michael Jacobs, the well-being agenda“ provides a new justification and a new language for goals that Labour already has”. And what he says of the UK Labour Party applies to the left, more broadly defined.
' The well-being agenda is not new: it has been discussed since at least the fourth century BC '
This article outlines why the well-being agenda is important and then briefly explores two key policy implications of taking a well-being approach – making clear the synergies between these and the traditional approach of the left.
First, it is worth noting what we mean by‘ well-being’: people feeling good and functioning well. This definition combines three traditional approaches to well-being: having good evaluations of life overall, a hedonic view of well-being as‘ happiness’ and good day-to-day feelings, and an Aristotelian( eudaimonic) view of well-being, as‘ fulfilment’, or‘ flourishing’. We believe that it is important that a definition of well-being takes account of each of these aspects, not least because evidence suggests that good feelings result from functioning well. By‘ well-being approach’ we are referring to policy-making that takes into account indicators and evidence from questions about people’ s experienced well-being, that is, subjective measures of well-being.
Why is a well-being approach important?
A well-being approach is important because it allows us to focus on what really matters – to reaffirm the fundamental priority of creating good lives. It balances the current prominence given to measures of economic activity in political discourse. It reminds us that GDP growth is a means to that end; not something to be valued in itself, but significant insofar as it contributes to producing good( happy, fulfilled) lives in an equitable and socially just way.
' GDP growth is a means to an end; not something to be valued in itself '
The architects of the original systems of national accounts knew perfectly well that measures of national income were limited and could not be taken as a proxy for welfare. Simon Kuznets, who led the work on their development in the US, told Congress that‘ the welfare of a nation can … scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income’. However, the effects of the war and post-war reconstruction efforts meant that economic production was given priority and GDP became a convenient measure of national achievement( see the National Accounts of Well-being website). Since then, political figures have commented on the way that national income measures count environmental destruction as a positive and fail to account for the things that‘ make life worthwhile’, as Robert Kennedy said in 1968. The focus on GDP growth as a proxy indicator for success remains today.
With a well-being approach the space opens up for focusing political attention on – and designing policies around – the full range of factors that produce good lives – including, but not limited to, economic ones. In the following section we turn briefly to two policy areas – income distribution and
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