Happy nations don't focus on growth

Fairness in an economic sense is often difficult to pin down; americans often focus on employment rather than eg distribution of wealth.

> They were saying that the U.S. (government through laws and legal system) centered on "fairness" up until recently. Sometime after WWII the focus changed to Economics and growth.

I absolutely agree with this. Considering the history and how we used to run public schools, it seems almost obvious.

American nationalism was at an all-time high during World War 2 and we rode that straight into the Cold War... 50 years of anti-soviet propaganda and public discourse, riding the post-WW2 American economic boom and global "anti-communist" imperialism. For an entire generation community-oriented principles, egalitarianism, collectivist ideas, and far-left leaders were demonized as Soviet sympathizers, replaced with rah rah unregulated capitalism, Ayn Rand-ian individualist, and military might.

If you've ever wondered why many modern American Christians blatantly disregard the liberal social aspects of Jesus/the Bible, look no further. WW2's morale-boosting propaganda morphed into a cancer of civil discourse, deeply coupling nationalism with the perceived indisputable success of American capitalism.

Consider these two points: * The Cold War started 70 years ago, and formally ended 26 years ago * 2016 Trump / Sanders popularity, bucketed by age: http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/age_of_voting_groups_...

American society takes time to change because our 2-party system is dominated by unengaged voters, the uneducated electorate that votes without thinking about it... heavily influenced by the world they grew up in, and what they were taught from k-12. When many election results are +/- 5%, moving the average 10% in one direction has long-term consequences.

It's worth thinking about how our 17 year-old "War on Terror" will continue to change society...

Growth also contributes to global warming. And the many people who think it could now or eventually decrease it compound the problem.

There's a huge difference between fudging GDP data from 5.5% to 7.0%, out of / internal politics / whatever (which is probably about what is happening) and "not growing"

I really don't think that this article makes a very good case for nations to focus on happiness over economic growth. It is apparent that the nations that the article states are the happiest are highly developed nations which have had decades of growth which has given them the means to keep their population happy. With regard to the point about China's growth, I believe that given how rapidly China is growing, there will be a significant lag between the rate at which GDP grows and the time when the Chinese people begin receiving the benefits of this growth.

Of course, general well-being is a better metric of whether the incumbent gets voted in than economic growth in developed countries because well-being is far more tangible to the common man than the abstract concept of economic growth. OTOH, in a developing country, I'd argue growth is a better indicator of the probability that the incumbent will win since developing countries have growth rates which are in general far higher than developed, and since these high growth rates result in visible, tangible changes: bridges get built, schools are opened, and people get jobs.

Perhaps, the new thesis of the article should be that developing nations should focus on economic growth, while developed ones should focus on the happiness of their people.