Hey, America: It's Time to Redefine the "Good Life"

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

Hey, America: It's Time to Redefine the "Good Life"
Although economic growth has been an important driver of human progress in the past, we in the developed world must now look elsewhere for improvements in our quality of life.

February 26, 2010 |


The following is excerpted from the The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, published by Bloomsbury Press. Copyright © 2009 by the authors.


It seems likely that environmental constraints on economic growth will dominate world politics for the foreseeable future. A pessimistic view would be that this is the beginning of the end of the most prosperous chapter in human history, and that business activity will be submerged -- if not by storms and rising sea levels -- then by a rising tide of government restrictions. A more optimistic response is to view the necessary constraints on economic growth as an opportunity to create a new and better post-consumerist society.

As the quality of life is so often defined in terms of material living standards and national income per person, it might seem paradoxical to claim that environmental restrictions on economic growth need not involve sacrificing our quality of life. But if instead we define the ‘quality of life’ in terms of life expectancy, happiness and well-being, then the data clearly shows that we, in the rich market democracies, no longer benefit from increasing affluence.

Although economic growth has been the most important driver of human progress in the past and still has a crucial role to play in improving lives in developing countries, we in the developed world must now look elsewhere for further improvements in the real quality of life.

We are social epidemiologists; people who usually spend their time trying to understand how social factors affect population health. Our work has focused on different aspects of wellbeing in rich market democracies. Rather than looking at subjective measures, such as happiness, we have looked at objective measures, such as life expectancy, homicide rates, drug abuse, child well-being, levels of trust, involvement in community life, mental illness, teenage birth rates, children’s math and literacy scores, and the proportion of the population in prison. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/books/145827/hey%2C_america%3A_it%27s_time_to_redefine_the_%22good_life%22

[DJ13]

1. How about we maintain our standards and work to regain it instead

[marmar]

2. But that "standard" is an unsustainable illusion....fueled by credit and destructive to the earth.

nt

[DJ13]

3. No, its fueled by having a solid middle class due to good paying jobs

Settling for less means the free market capitalists win.

[marmar]

4. I agree on the good-paying jobs front....but the era of conspicuous consumption needs to end.

nt

[DJ13]

5. It cant

Our entire economy is driven by consumer spending.

70% of our GDP is based on it.

So lets assume we can settle for less, 40-50-60%, okay the economy is depressed, but it wont matter one bit if you're concerned for ecological reasons since our depressed economy will be increasingly dependent on cheap overseas goods due to cost.

That wont improve our country (just the opposite in fact), nor will it improve the ecology of the planet, it will only shift our middle class wages to China and India, increasing their own economies while adding even MORE pollution to our planet than if the manufacturing (and the jobs) remained here in the US since we have stricter pollution regulations.

[marmar]

6. But my argument is that the economy doesn't need to be 70 percent based on consumer spending....

A non-financialized economy dependent on the exchange of real goods and services, rather than such a heavy dependence on cash, wouldn't require it.
And besides, much of the consumer spending explosion of the 1990s and 2000s was fueled by easy access to high credit card limits and overvalued homes people could use as ATMS. That's long gone now......