Countless metrics have been proposed over time to track wellbeing of some type. The recent WISE initiative [1] tries to put some structure around this (using current welfare, future welfare and inclusiveness as key dimensions).
Despite this lack of sharpness and unassailable objectivity, the signal sent by all these metrics is generally real: the focus on aggregate economic performance (the infamous GDP) and organizing society entirely around the maximization of monetarily defined wealth is too simplistic, no longer fit-for-purpose (if it ever was) and potentially a complete cul-de-sac.
The list of "happy" countries is more or less the set where various intangible cultural aspects partially mitigate the growing inadequacy of the mainstream socioeconomic apparatus. But it is not a blueprint that can be easily adopted or improved upon by other countries and cultures.
Yet there are no visible paths to workable alternatives (or complements) to the existing system. The simplicity of mapping everything onto a single monetary dimension has been such a successful monopoly and created incredibly strongly entrenched interests. It has left effectively no room for evolving any other broad-based economic infrastructure or tools that might expand what we optimize for to things that evidently matter.
People are frustrated and compile this or that index or meta-index but the expression "put money where your mouth is" neatly expresses the current impasse. Happy happiness day! [2]
Whatever metrics anyone comes up with today, cannot be scaled back historically.
If e.g. you put some metric around "do you have a car", and try to use that metric towards "happiness", this implicitly puts all the people in 19th century in the "unhappy by not having a car" category.
The only thing that can be used over time is the self-reported level of happiness. I.e. "on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy do you feel today?". And this is exactly what this study does.
The real issue is that GDP (a concept which is too complicated to be understood by general populace), or any other "economic performance" criterion, have little to no relation to the self-perceived happiness of the population. Objectively poor people can be happy, and objectively rich people can be unhappy.
Despite this lack of sharpness and unassailable objectivity, the signal sent by all these metrics is generally real: the focus on aggregate economic performance (the infamous GDP) and organizing society entirely around the maximization of monetarily defined wealth is too simplistic, no longer fit-for-purpose (if it ever was) and potentially a complete cul-de-sac.
The list of "happy" countries is more or less the set where various intangible cultural aspects partially mitigate the growing inadequacy of the mainstream socioeconomic apparatus. But it is not a blueprint that can be easily adopted or improved upon by other countries and cultures.
Yet there are no visible paths to workable alternatives (or complements) to the existing system. The simplicity of mapping everything onto a single monetary dimension has been such a successful monopoly and created incredibly strongly entrenched interests. It has left effectively no room for evolving any other broad-based economic infrastructure or tools that might expand what we optimize for to things that evidently matter.
People are frustrated and compile this or that index or meta-index but the expression "put money where your mouth is" neatly expresses the current impasse. Happy happiness day! [2]
[1] https://www.beyond-gdp.world/wise-database/wise-metrics
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Happiness