Sarkozy proposes measuring happiness.

I’m starting to think that French President Sarkozy is a Sightline fan. Last week it was a killer carbon tax proposal; now it’s something else near and dear to our hearts: a national measure of happiness as a counterpoint to GDP.

Springboarding from a new report prepared by giants of the economics world, Sarkozy is calling for a more comprehensive view of economic well-being, one that puts human well-being in driver’s seat.

And he’s not alone:

U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel economics prize and a critic of free-market economists, co-authored the report.

“GDP is an attempt to measure one part of what is going on in our society which is market production. It is what I call GDP fetichism to think success in that part is success for the economy and for society,” he said.

Yep. Stiglitz’s point is obvious enough, really. The regular drumbeat of GDP — did it go up this quarter? does that mean the recession is over? — tends to drown out other measures of well-being. And that's unfortunate because "the economy," even when it's narrowly defined as GDP, should probably exist to serve the interests of us human beings, and not the other way around.

Interestingly, while you might think France would score well on a national measure of happiness owing to the country’s cultural orientation toward leisure time and amenities, it turns out that according to at least one well-regarded study of world happiness levels, France fares poorly — substantially below the happiness levels found in the US and Canada.

Which, really, is all the more reason to measure happiness. If something untoward is happening, we need careful measurements of human well-being, not the bean-counting of GDP math.

Sightline has written a fair amount on this subject over the years. Find it all here.

This piece originally appeared on Sightline Daily

Related posts:
How Happy Are You? Take the GPH Quiz
Who’s Happy and Why?
Measuring Genuine Progress

Help us change the world – DONATE NOW!

(Posted by Eric De Place in Politics at 12:22 PM)

This video animation, Money as Debt by Paul Grignon, is undoubtedly one the most important films ever made.

If you don’t yet understand why money is such a big problem, WATCH THIS VIDEO.

Please help spread this video far and wide.

I’ve embedded it here, but you can watch and download it on Google Video too.

Further introductory reading

• Ecology of Money and Short Circuit by Richard Douthwaite
• Community Currency Guide (pdf) by Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith
• Interest and Inflation Free Money by Margrit Kennedy
• Extract of Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (pdf) by Tom Greco
• Draft of Healthy Money Healthy Planet:Developing Sustainability through new Money Systems by Deirdre Kent
• Chapter One of Grip of Death (literal meaning of mortgage) by Michael Rowbotham
• Money Debt and Banks essay by Richard Greeves, Dr. John Courtneidge and David Soori
• Openmoney.info and the Open Money Manifesto by Michael Linton and friends
• The inspirational article A Tale of Two Ecovillages by Jonathan Dawson, that looks at Damanhur’s Credito currency and Findhorn’s Eko

Some of the many examples of successful alternatives to the Money as Debt madness:

• Bartercard
• The Totnes Pound
• Berkshares
• Toronto Dollar
• Salt Spring Dollars
• Ithaca Hours
• WIR Bank – Economic Circle Co-operative that has been running in Switzerland since 1934
• Damanhur’s Credito
• Findhorn’s Eko

See also:

• Timebanks.org
• Time Banks UK
• The LETSystem Design Manual
• LETS Link UK
• The ccSyndicator
• Complementary Currency Resource Center
• The Workgroup on Solidarity Socio-Economy’s sub-site on Social Money
• Interra Project
• LOADs more really good money links can be found via all the sites above, here, here, here and here

Again, please help to spread this video and information far and wide.

Thank you.

Further reading:

• a_changing_money_system.pdf by Margrit Kennedy
• Beyond Greed and Scarcity.pdf – an interview with Bernard Lietaer by Sarah van Gelder, editor of YES!: A journal of positive futures.
• breadhoursnewsletter.pdf – a nice newsletter from the now defunct www.breadhours.org (anyone know what happened?)
• ccClearingHouse.pdf – a proposal for an “Internet-based clearing system that would enable complementary currencies of different types from anywhere in the world to be exchanged among themselves. It would be an important next step to empower the complementary currency movement.”
• Comment on the Wörgl Experiment with Community Currency and Demurrage.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• Community Currencies in Japan.pdf by Yasuyuki Hirota
• community currency for solving social issues.pdf by Akio Doteuchi
• Community_Currency_Guide.pdf – an excellent guide by Bernard Lietaer and Gwendolyn Hallsmith
• Community_Exchange_Systems_screen.pdf – a Community Exchange Systems in Asia, Africa & Latin America newsletter from 2002
• Complementary currency systems and the new economic paradigm.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere for Strohalm Foundation
• decentralizedcurrency.pdf – Money as IOUs in a Social Trust Network and A Proposal for a Secure, Private, Decentralized Digital Currency Protocol by Ryan Fugger, founder of Ripplepay,com
• FEASTA Proposals 4 Gobal Monetary Reform.pdf by Feasta: The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
• How to Build Healthy Community Economics.pdf – a presentation by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• InternationalExperienceInCommunityCurrencies.PDF by Gill Seyfang and Ruth Pearson
• interraproj.pdf – an introduction to the Interra Project
• InWhoseInterest.pdf – an article by Mark Kinney for http://www.terratrc.org/
• Islamic Banking and its Importance in the Emergence of Economic Democracy.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• keeping_the_gp_away.pdf – a nef (new economics foundation) briefing about community time banks and health
• local_currencies_catalysts.pdf – “Local Currencies: Catalysts for Sustainable Regional Economies” by Robert Swann and Susan Witt
• Local Currencies in European History.pdf by Jerome Blanc for LEFI
• MoneyABriefHistoryDeeHock.pdf – “Money – A Brief History” by Dee Hock, founder of VISA
• money debt and banks.pdf by Richard Greeves, Dr. John Courtneidge and David Soori
• money_guide.pdf – United Diversity’s Money Guide
• pictorial_history_of_CCS.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere
• Plugging the Leaks – Handbook.pdf – Making the most of every pound that enters your local economy, published by nef
• Presentation of Tucson Traders for the Forum Social Money.pdf by Thomas H Greco, Jr.
• Public Involvement in Health-Timebanks.pdf by nef
• Report of the Worldwide Database of Complementary Currency Systems 06.pdf by Stephen DeMeulenaere
• Setting Up a Credit Union.pdf from the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd
• Social_Money_as_a_Lever_for_the_New_Economic_Paradigm.pdf, summarised by Heloisa Primavera
• Social Money the experience of Friendly Favors.pdf by Sergio Lub
• Social money – Well timed permanence or break from normality.pdf by Heloisa Primavera
• The SANE Community Exchange System.pdf by Tim Jenkin
• the_time_of_our_lives.pdf – Research findings about Time Banks in the UK, by Gill Seyfang
• Time Banking – A briefing.pdf by nef
• Time Banks – A Radical Manifesto for the UK.pdf by nef
• Time Banks in the UK-Building Sustainable Communities.pdf by Gill Seyfang
• Wealth money and power.pdf by Heloisa Primavera
• What is a credit union flyer.pdf by ABCUL

As it says at the beginning it is very dense, but overall I think it is really rather good.

For more info about the movie visit the website

Trailer

Peak Moment 72: “What a Way to Go” – Meet the Filmmakers

It was on google video but seems to have gone:

A truly brilliant film about media that also touches on the realities of oil and money.

The classic “Mad as Hell” speech is repeated a bit below, because I wanted to include the first clip that includes what happened beforehand, but that doesn’t include the reaction to the speech and so I had to include the second clip here too.

Enjoy!

And remember to get hold of and watch this movie in full. It is fantastic.

Watch it now!

UPDATE: watch it here.