Here’s John’s blog:

  • Wednesday, Jun 16th, 2010 originally in CSRwire

Vermont Hosts First U.S. Gross National Happiness Conference

What happens when 120 people get together to talk about Gross National Happiness?

By John de Graaf

Recently, I read two well-written books. Both Barbara Ehrenreich’s BRIGHT-SIDED and Chris Hedges’ EMPIRE OF ILLUSION, challenge the inherent optimism of Americans, showing how it keeps them from a critical analysis of our failings and unable to defend themselves against corporate predation. Each book devotes a chapter to a scathing attack on the new science of “happiness,” seeing it only as a self-help deception meant to persuade American workers to cheerfully and docilely accept their oppression.

I wish Ehrenreich and Hedges could have joined the 120 people who attended the first Gross National Happiness (GNH) Conference held in the United States, from June first to third in Burlington, Vermont.

Speaker after speaker suggested that happiness was to be found not in our devotion to an ever-expanding consumer society, but in understanding that the best things in life aren’t things. All agreed that building community, sharing wealth and caring for each other are far more likely to lead to satisfied lives than the individualist ethic of American hyper-capitalism.

Here are a few of the highlights of the conference, as I saw them:

The keynote speaker was Karma Tshiteem, the Commissioner of Happiness for Bhutan, where the goal of “Gross National Happiness” is enshrined in the Constitution. He offered a fascinating look at how GNH indicators influence government policy there.  Major policies are subjected to “screening tools” that assess 23 indicators of happiness (eg. Work-life balance, Income distribution, Stress). When the issue of Bhutan’s joining the World Trade Organization was judged in this way it failed, though initially government leaders had been strongly in favor.

Ron Colman, who developed Canada’s Genuine Progress Indicator and is now advising the government of Bhutan, described the new system of national accounts in Bhutan — the world’s first — that subtracts costs of resource loss and other externalities from the its national income. In the U.S., most of the enormous costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe will actually be added to GDP!

Colman explained how the concept of GNH is also being used in the education of Bhutanese children, “so they will not be trapped by the lure of materialism.  Young people are bombarded with western images of success.”  Colman says GNH education includes critical thinking about products — where do they come from, where do they go?  Children are shown a can of Coke and ask to consider where everything in it comes from, what the impact of drinking it is on their health, where the water is obtained, for example.

The show stealer was Susan Andrews, an American now living in Brazil, who runs a demonstration eco-village and education center. Andrews showed a video depicting how Brazil is using GNH surveys in cities, schools, universities and businesses. She teaches happiness skills to young students in the slums or favelas and finds the process effective in reducing violence. Her enthusiasm and dedication were inspiring and she received a standing ovation.

I talked with Susan at the airport in Burlington before flying home to Seattle.  Her hopefulness about GNH was tempered by a deep sadness about the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and by a feeling that much of the happiness movement doesn’t understand how important it is to challenge corporate power and inequality if we are to create happy societies.

I agree, and see some threats to the happiness movement on the horizon.  Consider two new books by Arthur Brooks, the President of the American Enterprise Institute. One is called GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The other is called THE BATTLE.

In these books, ideology trumps science. Brooks contends that the happiest countries are those with the least government and lowest taxes. Happiness researchers have found pretty much the opposite. Northern European countries with high tax rates actually rank at the top in happiness surveys.  Denmark is number One.

Line Kikkenborg Christensen, a young Danish graduate student who attended the conference, explained why. The Danes’ strong social safety net, including excellent free health care and higher education and unemployment insurance mean they feel less need to get the highest paying jobs, regardless of whether or not the work is satisfying.  “I feel secure for me and for my children, so I can follow my passion,” she declared.

Arthur Brooks wants to nip such ideas in the bud, hijacking the science of happiness for conservative goals.  He uses a handful of questionable studies in the way climate change skeptics do, to undermine the preponderance of research.  He claims that inequality does not matter, for example, and that social safety nets actually reduce happiness by reducing personal initiative.

The evidence, marshaled clearly, in Burlington, shows that Brooks is wrong and that happy societies are those that share wealth, reduce work-time, consume carefully and take good care of the environment.  The movement for Gross National Happiness is part of a movement for a more just America.  The first GNH conference in Burlington was a great start in that direction.

About John de Graaf

JOHN DE GRAAF is a documentary filmmaker and the Executive Director of Take Back Your Time. He is the co-author of AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC.  His most recent film is WHAT’S THE ECONOMY FOR, ANYWAY? He teaches occasionally at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and lives in Seattle.

Readers: What’s your “talkback” on the science of happiness? Does happiness depend on the individual or on the social environment? Share your thoughts!