What is the ultimate goal of politics and public policy? One answer is that, in an ideal world at least, the ultimate aim of politics and policy is to ensure that citizens are able to live good, flourishing lives. National constitutions and the manifestos of political parties are often a testament to this. To cite just a few examples, the preamble to the US constitution cites the âgeneral welfareâ of the people as a core concern,1 and the constitution of Kenya declares a commitment to ânurturing and protecting the well-being of the individual, the family , communities and the nation.â2 The Manifesto of Spainâs largest political party, the Partido Popular, states that the person is âthe centre, the beginning and the end of all our political action,â3 while Japanâs largest party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, sees âthe Publicâs welfare as our chief imperative.â4
This political principle of the ultimate value of well-being , however, was seriously compromised during the latter half of the twentieth century by the way in which human welfare was conceptualised and measured. National governments and international institutions tended to equate human welfare with economic welfare, and measured progress and development in terms of macroeconomic indicators like Gross Domestic product (GDP). The ârising tide lifts all boatsâ approach to economic governance was applied with particular force by international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (for example, through policies of âStructural Adjustmentâ), often with devastating consequences for human well-being in developing countries.
The main problem with the measurement of human welfare in terms of economic production and consumption alone, and the consequent single-minded focus on macroeconomic policy, is that it subverts the idea that human welfare is of ultimate concern. It amounts to an erroneous inversion of means and ends, often treating citizens as mere means to achieving the end of a sound economy.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, âGDP fetishismâ was identified as the fundamental mistake that it is, largely thanks to the landmark work of Joseph Stiglitz and colleagues (Stiglitz et al. 2009, known as the âSarkozy Commissionâ). This represented a breakthrough moment in historic trends of human development, and fired the starting pistol for a new movement whereby national governments and international institutions began to put people at the heart of national progress and well-being thinking and policy. At last, it looked as if policy attention had shifted towards people-centred progress that focused on ensuring flourishing lives for people, with a strong economy as just one means of achieving that end. This seemed to be the beginning of a move away from policies grounded in a utilitarian conception of well-being as individual utility, measured at the aggregate level by economic production and consumption, towards a richer conception of the good human life.
Despite some lingering utilitarian tendencies on the part of some national governments (see Chapter 2), the tide had indeed turned. In the wake of the Sarkozy Commission, many national well-being programmes were developed; this has been referred to as the âsecond waveâ of political concern with well-being (Bache and Reardon 2013). Examples include the Bhutanese Gross National Happiness Index, composed of the nine domains of Psychological well-being, Health , Education , Time use, Cultural diversity and resilience, Good governance, Community vitality, Ecological diversity and resilience, and Living standards (Ura et al. 2012), and the Canadian Index of Well-being , constituted by the domains of Community vitality, Democratic engagement, Education , Environment, Healthy populations, Leisure and culture , Living standards and Time use (CIW 2016). In the UK, the Measuring National Well-being programme is designed to âmeasure what mattersâ (ONS 2011, p. 2)âthat is, what people value . This framework comprises the domains of Health , Relationships, Education and skills, Personal Finance, Where we live, What we do, Personal Well-being, Economy, Governance and Environment (ONS 2011).
These are just three examples of the plethora of national well-being indices developed during the âBeyond GDP â era.5 There is clear convergence in many aspects of these different frameworks: common to the Canadian, British and Bhutanese lists, for example, are Health , Education , Material standard of living and Social relationships . However, at the same time, important differences remain. Do the Spanish, Japanese and Kenyan governments, for example, have the same conception of what well-being is? This seems unlikely. Societies differ in their political, social and economic structures, and in attitudes and norms around a huge variety of issues. In his classic study of democracies, Lijphart (1999) identified seven âissue dimensionsâ along which states (democratic or otherwise) vary. These were labelled âSocio-economic,â âReligious,â âCultural-ethnic,â âUrban-rural,â âRegime supportâ (i.e. popular support for an existing political system), âForeign policyâ and âPost-materialistâ (i.e. the balance between what Inglehart (1977) identified as âsurvivalâ values , such as material security and stability, and âself-expressionâ values , such as environmental protection and gender equality). Intersecting variations across all these dimensions result in great diversity in the social-political settings of well-being across the world.
How important are these differences in the context of global challenges such as climate change, poverty and inequality, which require collective action? Differences in âcultural values â are often cited as reasons for conflict and a lack of integration and understanding between people from different countries, and between different communities within the same countries. Indeed, the defence and promotion of âBritish Valuesâ has featured prominently in British political discourse in recent years, and exclusionary political discourses around âourâ values have also found footholds in other countries, notably the Netherlands and the USA .
Diversity in conceptions of what matters most in life raises questions about the most important aspects of human well-being , and whether there are any true universals, or only culture-specific values . The aim of this book is to identify the commonalities that emerge from different theoretical and practical accounts of well-being . I propose that the universal features of the human experience, including our shared embodiment and shared sociality , are grounds for expecting to find commonalities in the basic conceptions of the good that lie beneath the rich diversity of human tradition and culture . The basic needs of human physical survival, such as food and shelter, are obviously universal. However, this study is not about the universals of life, but the ...