Skipper

God knows, it's hard to say it, but I agree with David Cameron. Not on everything of course, but specifically that a General Wellbeing Index is of more significance than a GDP one. A recent report by right-wing think-tank, the IEA, suggests that the only thing that will make people more happy is more money, so attempts to compile a happiness index are a waste of time. Dominic Lawson, as one might expect, chips in to agree. The whole idea was to debunk what the right derisively label the 'touchy feely' brigade's notion that there is more to life than making money. Even though Cameron's study to gauge national happiness will cost only £2m, this is thought to be a complete waste of time and money by such critics.

I'm not so sure. Richard Layard's study of Happiness several years ago now, suggested that above a minimum amount required to live like most other people- he suggested £25K a year- increases in happiness do not correlate positively with increasing levels of prosperity. Our living experience surely tells us that while our wealth has trebled or more since the 1950s, we are nowhere near three times happier. Moreover, the media provides us with abundant evidence, in the form of celebrity depression, drug addiction and suicides, that plentiful supplies of moolah are no guarantee of a life lived happily. Most studies of well being reveal the country where people are happiest is Denmark, a country characterised for many by socio-econmic equality and rejection of crude materialism.

The IEA purports to show that the richer a country is, the happier it becomes.I can see that data might be assembled to prove this argument but there is another consideration. This is that finite resources dictate that continuing our pell-mell pursuit of wealth creates an immovable imperative: it will eventually leave a husk of a planet, of no use to anyone, whether a brilliant entrepreneur or a humble 'hewer of wood and carrier of water'. The IEA purports to show that the richer a country is, the happier it becomes. I seriously doubt such findings as they conflict with the evidence of good old commonsense.