Friday, September 22, 2006
Will Wilkinson on happiness
Will Wilkinson, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington DC and author of the Happiness & Public Policy blog (see link on the left), has an article in the October issue of Prospect (the start of the article is available here ). In it he argues that GDP per head does have a significant impact on happiness over time. He also cites the argument by Benjamin Friedman, a professor of economics at Harvard, that economic growth may be necessary to maintain happiness at a reasonable level (see review link on the left).
To me such arguements are unnecessarily defensive. Economic growth is beneficial whether or not it bolsters happiness. And unhappiness is not necessarily a bad thing – it can be positive if it is an incentive for humans to create a better society.
To me such arguements are unnecessarily defensive. Economic growth is beneficial whether or not it bolsters happiness. And unhappiness is not necessarily a bad thing – it can be positive if it is an incentive for humans to create a better society.
