From cargo-cult to slowcialism
There was an interesting follow up last week to the UN’s research showing that UK children have the lowest levels of wellbeing in the EU. The update suggests that these low levels of wellbeing are due to unusually high materialism levels. As one of the recommendations from UNICEF was a ban on advertising to children,...
TaxPayers’ Alliance make a mockery of themselves by denying wellbeing evidence
We’ve seen mixed reviews for the recent (ONS) announcements on options for a national wellbeing index to run alongside GDP. In support for these revolutionary new measures of progress we have an unlikely series of bedfellows, including the prime minister; progressive business leaders like Ian Cheshire and Ian Marchant CEOs of B&Q Kingfisher and SSE;...
Taking a longer view
Politics in Britain today is failing to recognise the need for a radical updating of capitalism. At the heart of this is a need for a new macroeconomics with people and planet not wealth and growth as its focus. Wellbeing economics is a fast moving and game-changing subject, it is at the vanguard of debate...
Millennium Consumption Goals
I really like the idea of Millennium Consumption Goals. Instead of fixating on what needs to happen in the developing world through the (failing) Millennium Development Goals, what about us in the rich world fessing up to our role in inequality and over-use?
Only greed can save us?
I just read a tweet by someone who follows me on Twitter, via Solitaire Townsend, on a piece by New Scientist’s environment correspondent Fred Pearce which suggests that greed will save us from the impending perfect storm.
Cameron’s Happiness Index is welcome news for progressives
The government has announced a wellbeing review. What might this mean and why is this an important and welcome sign of progressiveness? In conventional wisdom, economic growth and higher incomes mean richer lives and improved quality of life. But, as the Happy Planet Index shows, true prosperity goes beyond material pleasures.
Cameron@TED
Not to be outdone by the competition, David Cameron has lost his TED-talk virginity (Brown spoke last year). In a speech on his Big Idea of ‘people power’ Cameron seemed to be quoting from Citizen Renaissance saying “It is a post-bureaucratic age and the citizen/consumer is in charge”. Developing the theme of his Big Idea,...
Citizens / Climate change / Communications / Individuality / Leadership / New Economics / Trust / Wellbeing
Inverting The Power Pyramid
Preparing some notes for a panel session at next week’s CBI forum on Climate Change, I am struck by how top-down the world still really is and suddenly alarmed that I remain in a narrow minority of those wishing and willing to embrace bottom-up democracy and ride the chaos of new networks. The CBI intro...
Debunking the Tragedy of the Commons
One of the final myths holding us back from a much needed updating of corporate-consumer-growth-capitalism has now been debunked with Professor Elinor Ostrom becoming the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics. Ostrom’s work won the prize for the way it debunks The Tragedy of the Commons which has long been used as...
