Economics and Quality of Life
Once upon a time, there were tribes of people. And they traded some stuff. And they found it good to trade. And they found more tribes to trade with and thus trade spread over the world, and people traded amazing things. Spices, clothes, art, and more. And this was good, and helpful to them. And thus, economics was born.
As the practice of economics evolved in complexity, it became a system of currency speculation, derivatives, debt, subprime mortgages, black market weapon and drug trading via secret accounts or bitcoin, buying politicians, and other sundry complexities. And yes, for the purposes of this fairy tale, I am oversimplifying greatly. Early traders traded slaves and war, not just art. And our complex system has many positives to it.
But the original idea of economics seems to be fundamentally useful — let’s each of us determine what is useful and helpful to us, and trade something we can provide in return that is desirable to others.
There is another thing that entered into modern economics which is advertising. A major goal of advertising is to influence what people believe is useful or desirable to them. So our trading patterns become greatly influenced by advertisers, who define our culture based on who pays them to advertise.
None of this necessarily has anything to do with actual quality of life or the ability of an individual or the human race to survive well over the long term. So let’s take a closer look at fundamentals.
The Greek derivation of economics means the “management of a household.”
An Old English derivation of wealth comes from “weal,” meaning “well being.”
What if we took the meanings of these words back to their fundamentals? What if once again they chiefly meant those things? What if the context for our economic decisions was within those frameworks? How would we know if economic policy, whether public or private, was moving us in that direction?
In permaculture and systems thinking, we talk about things like leverage points for change. What are leverage points for a positive change in how we view this subject and interact with it?
There are a few thinkers out there who feel they have a good place to start.
Andrew Yang (currently a candidate for President in the 2020 primaries), Mark Anielski (Canadian economist who wrote “The Economics of Happiness ” and “An Economy of Well Being”), and a number of others agree that one place we should start is with our economic statistics. We need a better way to measure the progress of our country toward actual desirable goals, and to facilitate those goals while hindering undesirable ones.
Currently, the two major statistics bandied about as indicators of success are jobs and Gross Domestic Product.
“Jobs” and “GDP” are value neutral indicators. They measure quantity, not quality. As an example, the jobs statistic could be doing well, while if we look more closely at what is happening, all the new jobs could be for jail wardens or in heavy polluting industries that will kill the employee, or others. GDP could be made up mainly of sickness care, disaster clean up, war and jails. These statistics do not reflect quality of life. They don’t reflect the ability of the system to continue to survive well or survive at all, over the long term.
What if we included what we actually want in our economic statistics? Why do we want jobs? To have a good life, so our kids have opportunities, etc. Where are those statistics in economic reports?
Do you know what the statistics are for the points that you consider bring quality of life? Are they included in economic reports? Why not?
Economics is something humans invented to serve us. So shouldn’t our economic systems serve our highest interests, instead of us serving the machine? We need to start by defining what that means to us. I mean, really means. To us. Individually, and with our families, and in our communities.
Let’s look at some examples:
In our current economic system, people get points and credit for investing in heavily polluting industries and the military industrial complex. We get points if we use more bombs because then we need to make more. We get economic points for not curing illnesses that then need to be treated for life — creating a repeat customer.
Our current economic system does not give any points or rewards for spending more time with our kids, or helping our neighbor out, or reducing pollution in our company if it costs less to pollute (because then the companies that pollute are more “competitive” and thus get more economic points). It doesn’t give more points for keeping youth out of gangs and jail with volunteer after school programs, but instead gives higher value points for jailing people than most programs pay to keep them out.
By the way, in case you are thinking about free market vs regulated markets right now, I want to make clear that where I’m going with this is outside the realm of these economic theories and ideologies. It will work within the framework of any economic “ism.” Which means we don’t need to argue about any of those. I’m asking you to take a journey of imagination with me — don’t worry about how we will do this, just for this moment, imagine what it would be like if we did.
The real point is that, while we were distracted (by shiny objects in TV ads?), our basic definition of economics and what it is supposed to be doing was significantly altered.
Yang and Anielski are suggesting a very different approach.
What if our chief economic statistics reflected things that would make our communities healthier, happier, and less toxic? What if societies managed funds toward achieving these things? What if people in that community were asked what was important to their quality of life and their answers determined what the money was spent on?
What if communities were given an annual report on the progress on these programs?
What statistics would you like to see kept in your community, state and country?
Here are some (not a complete list) that are desirable for me personally, that I consider would increase my quality of life. What might happen if people were economically rewarded for these things rather than penalized? Or if these things were more highly rewarded than other versions? Note that many of these activities are done currently mainly by volunteers, lower paying non-profit jobs, or governments.
Businesses transitioned to non-toxic, non-polluting production
Reduced pollution
Affordable education opportunities and access
Wellness care successes (a statistic reflecting reduced need for sickness care because wellness care is working)
Crime prevention
Quality of opportunities for children (granted, hard to quantify, but I have ideas about it)
Nutritionally rich, regeneratively produced food
Ecosystem repair
Conflict resolution
Strong, supportive and resilient communities
Diversity and accessibility of arts and culture
Again, which statistics would you want to your community or nation to keep? I urge you to make a list. Go ahead, make a real wish list of your wildest dreams for your community. And then consider sending it to your representatives and letting them know, this is what they should be doing as your representative.
What we do with these statistics is up to individual communities and nations. The first step is to record them and report them broadly, all together, as annual reports, so to speak. They provide an important framework for further discussion and for where we put our focus.
I’m not suggesting that transitioning to such a model is easy or doesn’t have challenges. I’m also not suggesting changing the stats is all we need to do. It is a leverage point — something that can create context for our discussions about how we are doing as a nation or community.
I am strongly suggesting and even asserting, however, that continuing with a model that doesn’t focus on quality of life and long term survival is doomed to fail, sooner or later. It already is failing us on many fronts.
It’s up to us. The first step is imagining it!
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/measuring-the-economy/
https://uwaterloo.ca/canadian-index-wellbeing/people-profiles/mark-anielski
