Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

Rich countries will not benefit from more economic growthon self-interest and individualism, and much more emphasison altruism and collective action. All espouse thereplacement of economic growth as a societal target withnon-financial goals. But which ones? Other indicators ofwell-being and progress already exist, such as life expectancy,adult literacy, infant mortality, disposable incomeand crime rates. As we saw in Chapter 3, these measuresfigure heavily when political decisions are made – oftenmore heavily than concerns about GDP. Composite indicatorssuch as the United Nations’ Human DevelopmentIndex and the OECD’s Better Life Index also exist, but itis notable that the countries which perform best in theseleague tables are those with high GDP and free markets.The same is true when subjective feelings of happiness, lifesatisfaction and trust are measured. Any number of objectiveand subjective measures confirm the crucial role ofeconomic growth in improving a whole range of outcomes.Alternative attempts at measuring the success of asociety have produced results which defy credibility. Usingtheir own ‘Measure of Domestic Progress’, the New EconomicsFoundation concluded that Britain’s happiest yearwas 1976, a year in which inflation ran at twenty per cent,real wages fell and the nation’s economy had to be bailedout by the International Monetary Fund (NEF 2004). Direeconomic circumstances may not guarantee unhappinessbut, as Sandbrook notes, the New Economics Foundation‘must have been using a very peculiar index of nationalprogress, for even at the time most people regarded 1976as a dreadful year’ (Sandbrook 2012a: xix). The same thinktank’s attempt to compare countries using a ‘Happy Planet95