An Economy of Well-Being: Common-sense tools for building genuine wealth and happiness

by Mark Anielski

Overview

Help build a world based on flourishing well-being for both the human family and nature

In the face of political, financial, and environmental upheaval, it's difficult to slow down and build lives of mindfulness and joy. These things are within reach, but how can we go about creating a new world, using common-sense economics?

In An Economy of Well-being, author Mark Anielski presents a practical guide for building a new economy of well-being to help communities and nations become more flourishing and happier places to live. In this follow-up to his best-selling The Economics of Happiness, Anielski addresses key questions including:

• How can our personal and family assets be strengthened for a more fulfilling life of meaning and purpose?
• How can neighborhoods and cities become flourishing economies of well-being by making the best of abundant community assets?
• how can organizations, communities and financial institutions measure, manage and finance assets to achieve high levels of well-being?

An Economy of Well-being responds to a common yearning for common-sense tools to orient our lives, our businesses, and our communities towards well-being. This is ideal reading for anyone who wishes to contribute to building happier, more mindful communities, and ultimately lives of joy and meaning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771422611
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	05/22/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Mark Anielski is President and Chief Well-being Officer at Anielski Management Inc. He consults and speaks internationally on merging and measuring happiness, well-being and economics, including at Harvard, the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the University of Texas in El Paso, the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, Shanghai Normal University, University of Alberta, and the School of Business in Innsbruck, Austria. He has served as an economic advisor to China and Bhutan in their efforts to adopt new measures of well-being and happiness. He is the author of the award-winning The Economics of Happiness. He lives in Alberta, Canada with his family.

Mark Anielski is an economist, consultant and Adjunct Professor in both the School of Business, University of Alberta and the Bainbridge Island Graduate Institute. He was named a "rising star" amongst international progressive economists by Adbusters magazine in 2004, and awarded the 2004 ECO Award for his work on the Genuine Progress Indicator.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2: A Roadmap to Well-Being

It would be nice to think that the path to an economy well-being would be as simple as a well-being

compass, a map and virtuous strides following Dorothy along the yellow brick road to

visit the Wizard of Oz for guidance. Dorothy and her colleagues realized that the solutions they

were looking for (a brain, a heart, courage, and getting back to Kansas) could be found within

themselves. The practical tools and processes for designing and building an economy of well-being will likewise be found within our communities and driven by our convictions that a new

paradigm is possible.

Can Well-being be Measured?

One of the questions I am often asked is ‘can well-being and happiness actually be measured?’

Based on the recently released World Happiness Report, economics, psychologists, social

scientists and others are demonstrating that measuring happiness and well-being is possible.

Moreover, when something can be measured it becomes a science and thus achieves some

sense of legitimacy.

New surveys such as the Gallup World Poll (GWP), the World Values Survey (WVS) and other

surveys have been designed specifically to measure subjective well-being asking people to rate

their life satisfaction (today), their current perceptions of happiness, their sense of their

happiness yesterday (remembered well-being; “Overall, how happy were you yesterday), and

the positive affects (e.g. enjoyment, happiness, laughter) and negative affects (e.g. worry,

sadness, anger, depression) on happiness. When life satisfaction, happiness and these other

questions are asked, they tell a very similar story about the likely sources of a good life.

Happier nations (which include Denmark, Finland, and Canada) tend to have higher average

incomes, healthy life expectancy, stronger sense of personal freedom, less likely to perceive

widespread corruption in business and government, and people are more likely to have

someone they can call on in times of trouble.

There are a common set of objective determinants of subjective well-being that are emerging

suggesting we can combine both subjective happiness surveys with regular monitoring of the

conditions of well-being that are known to contribute to higher self-rated life satisfaction and

happiness.

Strong correlations have been found from research that show that life circumstances

(conditions of well-being) have a strong influence on subjective well-being or happiness and

that many subjective measures of well-being are highly correlated with objective measures of

well-being. For example, subjective measures of well-being have been correlated with a variety

of objective measures that include facial expressions, brain-wave patterns, cortisol measures in

individuals, and community and national suicide patterns. Measures of subjective well-being

can be used to predict subsequent events and behavior that are of importance to local

governance. For example, many happiness measures are predictive of sickness so that

collecting measures of happiness on a regular basis could be part of health maintenance and

delivery of health services. Another example is that persons with disabilities tend to have lower

subjective well-being ratings which is connected to the extent to which individuals can maintain

strong social connections.

According to some researchers, happiness follows a U-shape or smiley face pattern over the

course of a human lifespan (see Figure xx). We are happiest at a young age (before puberty)

and again in old age (65 years +). Happiness or life satisfaction declines sometime after 11-12

years of age and then nose-dives between 40-50 years of age. ‘Human happiness hits the

lowest point around the ages of 40 to 42,’ writes Melbourne University researcher Dr. Terence

Cheng, who led a longitudinal study into the U-bend phenomenon.24 But don’t worry, even as

you reach the bottom of your happiness curve in your 40s, you have another 30 years or more

to recalibrate, count your blessings, and pursue a life of purpose and work that brings genuine

meaning and joy to your life.

* * *

Five-Assets Sustainable Livelihood Model Measuring Assets

The Sustainable Livelihood Model, developed in the early 1990s as an outcome of the

Brundtland Commission work on sustainable development, provides a good framework for

assessing individual and community assets (see Figure xx). The model uses 5 asset classes

(personal, human, social, physical, financial) and 6 sub-asset characteristics recognizing that

everyone has assets on which to build and support individuals and families to acquire assets

needed for long-term well-being.

FIGURE 15: SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS MODEL

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Source: Department for International Development. (1999). Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheet: Introduction.

http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html#1.

The definition of sustainable livelihoods was originally defined as follows:

A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and

activities required for a means of living: a livelihood is sustainable which can cope with

and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and

provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which

contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the

short and long term.37

This definition is closely aligned with the City of Edmonton’s working definition of poverty

which related to the lack of resources and access to necessary resources for individuals to

participate fully in society. The City of Edmonton set an ambitious goal to eliminate poverty

within a generation through the EndPovertyEdmonton initiative in 2016. I served as a

measurement advisor to the initiative proposing the Sustainable Livelihoods framework as a

way of tracking the success of lifting 10,000 Edmontonians out of poverty within 5 years, the

target set by the City.

The Sustainable Livelihoods five-assets model could be used to assess individual and

household assets of those persons living in financial poverty. By assessing the conditions of the

assets for individuals and families living in poverty and then investing in strengthening these

assets could be the key to lifting people out of poverty. Several years ago I had discussed the

Sustainable Livelihood model with the United Way of Northern Alberta as a model for

measuring the success of United Ways efforts to help the most disadvantaged in the

community.

In order to understand the pathway out of poverty to well-being I believe it is necessary to

understand the key drivers that give rise to poverty conditions. The relative socio-economic

37 Department for International Development. (1999). Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheet: Introduction.

http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html#1

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conditions that currently result in conditions of poverty (measured currently in terms of lowincome

conditions) can be assessed and the relative impact of policy changes,

interventions/innovations, and other strategies/actions to alleviate conditions of living that

result in poverty (i.e. the lack of resources (deficits) and inaccessibility to resources that detract

from the pursuit of a given standard of livelihood).

While poverty tends to focus on the lack of life resources, an asset-based approach looks at

what resources people currently have for a certain quality of life.

The Sustainable Livelihood Model provides a good visualization of how poverty elimination

initiatives may lead to lifting people out of poverty into a flourishing state of well-being. This

takes taking an asset approach to solving some of the most challenging societal challenges.

Some of asset building actions may include providing low-cost sustainable affordable housing,

through models like Habitat for Humanity, which I will discuss later in the book. Other efforts

might include a living wage policy for cities that encourage all employers to appreciate what a

living wage is and to ensure their employees receive such a wage to ensure they can flourish

and participate fully in society.

Using a Sustainable Livelihoods model as the basis of accounting for the success of actions to

eliminate poverty can be an effective means of demonstrating progress and value for the

investments made in building up assets and therefore overall community well-being. Other key

measures of happiness, including a stronger sense of belonging and inclusion in society, will

also become key measures of success. The model recognizes that everyone has assets on

which to build and support individuals and families to acquire assets needed for long-term

well-being. They may focus on a more limited (e.g. specifically economic) or wider set of assets

(e.g. personal, cultural, social, political).

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The Well-being Economy and the UN Sustainable Development

Goals

The United Nations recently established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),169 targets

and 304 indicators which is tended to describe ‘the future we want’ for the world in terms of

sustainable development. The SDGs could be viewed as a set of human rights that taken

together could amount to an economy of well-being, thought they are not specifically

designed with that aspiration in mind. One of the shortcomings I observe, is that while the

goals are aspirational and may lead to a more sustainable economy they are not grounded on

any theoretical model or science of well-being. Moreover, the 17 sustainable development

goals, actions and proposed progress indicators are not organized within an asset accounting

model as proposed.

FIGURE 16: UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

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Source: United Nations. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 accessed May

30, 2017.

For many nations, particularly developed nations like Canada and European nations, the 17

goals constitute a check list that most progressive nations will have already achieved, with

some exceptions such as pockets of poverty amongst certain cohorts of the population (e.g.

poverty amongst First Nations in Canada).

Let’s take for example, the #1 goal of ending poverty applied to my own city of Edmonton,

Canada. I was part of the EndPovertyEdmonton task force whose aspiration was to developed

poverty elimination strategies and progress measurement systems for the City of Edmonton,

within a generation. I suggested that one way of ending poverty in wealthy countries like

Canada is to commit to ensuring all people earn a living wage — a wage sufficient to meet

life’s needs.

This would require a commitment by both public sector and businesses to pay a living wage,

which is a wage that would be sufficient to meet basic life needs to participate fully in any

society. However, on a global scale what would it cost to eliminate poverty if every person in

poverty was guaranteed a living wage?

In 2015 there were an estimated 935 million people (12.7% of the world’s population) living

below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day or roughly $500 per year. In 2005, according

to poverty facts currently roughly 50% of the world’s people (over 3.2 billion) live on $2.50 per

day while 80% (5.15 billion) live on $10 per day or less. The richest 1% (about 73 million) of the

world’s population owns 50% of the world’s total wealth of $125 trillion.

According to Forbes magazine, there were an estimated 123,800 multi-millionaires of which

1,810 were billionaires in 2015. Their aggregate net worth was $6.48 trillion or an average net

worth of $3.58 billion each. The combined wealth of the world’s billionaires ($6.48 trillion) is a

value 1.4 times larger than Japan’s GDP (the world’s 3rd largest economy with GDP of US$4.7

trillion) or 35% of US GDP (the world’s largest economy with a GDP of US$18.6 trillion). Some

76

economists including Jeffrey Sachs (author The End of Poverty: he End of Poverty: Economic

Possibilities for Our Time, 2005 ) have proposed providing a daily cash transfer of $0.50 per day

or $200 per year to the estimated 650 million living in extreme poverty or on less than $1.90

per day or $694 per year.

Based on these figures the total annual cost of eliminating poverty for the world’s extremely

poor would be a mere $130 billion or a mere 0.11% of the world’s total GDP 38 (US$119.4

trillion estimated GDP in Purchase Price Parity (PPP)39 or only 2.0% of the total net worth of the

world’s 1,810 billionaires.40 This would constitute a bold step in achieving the first UN SDG

goal of eliminating poverty.

However, this still does not solve the issue of billions of people who are not earning a living

wage from their labor. I’ve estimated that roughly 5.0 billion people (68% of the world’s

population) live below a living wage (a wage sufficient to meet life’s basic needs). A living

wages varies from one country to the next. For example, in Africa a living wage can range from

US$3.58-$14.39 per day; in Edmonton Alberta a living wage would be roughly $140.00 per day

($17.56 per hour).41 If we assume a median living wage of US$9.00/day for Africa applied to the

5.0 billion people living below a living wage, then the estimate annual global cost of paying a

living wage increment would be roughly $11.7 trillion per annum or 9.8% of the world’s annual

GDP. This is slightly higher than China’s GDP of $11.4 trillion. Adding $11.7 trillion in global

disposable income would be like adding the spending power of another China, the world’s 2nd

largest economy.

Of course, eliminating poverty is not simply about improving the wages of the poor; poverty

includes the lack of services or access to education, employment, and decision making. SDG

38 John McArthur with the Brookings Institute suggests there are 300 million fewer people living in extreme poverty

or 650 million people living in extreme poverty conditions. See https://www.brookings.edu/blog/futuredevelopment/

2017/06/01/how-many-countries-could-end-extreme-poverty-tomorrow/

39 CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

40 The cost would present only 0.26% of the combined GDP of the 10 richest countries in the world; 89.4% of the

world’s total GDP.

41 Edmonton living wage estimates for 2015 are based on the Edmonton Social Planning Council Tracking the Trends , 2015. P.

38.

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Goal #3 is to ‘ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.’ This goal is more

of a developing-nation issue than for countries like Canada with high life expectancy, generally

higher rates of health, access to clean drinking water and very low pollution-related illnesses.

Some have criticized the SDGs for being contradictory, because in seeking high levels of global

GDP growth, they will undermine their own ecol gical objectives. From the perspective of an

economic model, the SDGs in my opinion are not connected to an accounting architecture

such as the five asset capital model I have proposed for nations and governments. That does

not preclude municipal, provincial or national governments adopting the 17 SDGs within a five

capital asset accounting and reporting model that is based on the science of well-being. Many

of the SDGs and the targets and progress indicators are similar to the objective and subjective

well-being indicators that I have used to evaluate community well-being in Canada.

The Well-being-based Governments

At the municipal, provincial or state and national level well-being can be made the central

organizing principle and aspiration for societies as a whole. At present most economies are

governed to achieve high levels of economic progress is measured by single performance

measure, the GDP. Making well-being the central governing principle of all levels of

governments would provide governments with the capacity to not only measure what matters

to most citizens (namely the well-being of their families and communities) but also be a means

of demonstrating value for programs, services and taxes.

New public sector accounting systems that measure well-being conditions and progress will be

necessary to supplement and even replace the dominant money measures of progress such as

the GDP. New indices such as the Canadian Index of Well-being (CIW) can provide

governments, at all levels, to measure and monitor well-being conditions relative to an

economy’s GDP. The Canadian Index of Wellbeing measures eight domains of well-being –

Education; Living Standards; Community Vitality; Democratic Engagement; Healthy

Populations; Time Use; Leisure and Culture; and the Environment.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Foreword
Introduction: A New Economic Paradigm Based on Well-Being

1. Reclaiming Economics for Happiness
Reclaiming the Language of Economics
Happiness: Well-Being of Spirit
A New Index of Well-Being
Measuring Well-Being Objectively
Alberta's Economic Growth, Disease and Income Inequality
Exposing the Myth of Productivity
Measuring Happiness is All the Rage
People Prefer Happiness Over Wealth
Who Are the Happiest Canadians of All?
Happiness as the Ultimate Objective of Economic Development
From Financial Capitalism to Well-Being
Drowning in Debt
The Inconvenient Truth: How the Hidden Costs of Debt are Killing American Happiness
The Path Ahead

2. A Roadmap to Well-Being
Can Well-Being Be Measured?
The Science of Well-Being: What We Measure Affects What We Do
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and an Indigenous Model of Well-Being
The Util: Measuring Real Utility
Without Virtue, Happiness Cannot Be
The Five Capital Assets of Well-Being
Well-Being Accounts
The Five-Assets Sustainable Livelihood Model for Measuring Assets
The Well-Being Economy and UN Sustainable Development Goals
Well-Being-Based Governments

3. Bhutan, Edmonton and Alberta: Models of Well-Being Economics
Back to Edmonton: The City that Could
The Promise of Alberta
Alberta's Preliminary Asset Accounts

4. The Well-Being Community
The Edmonton Social Health Index
Measuring the Well-Being of Valleyview, Alberta
Edmonton's Well-Being Index and Measuring the Well-Being Return on Taxes
Community Asset and Well-Being-Impact-Based Governance
Well-Being-Based Governance and Budgeting
Designing a New Economy of Well-Being for Tahiti (French Polynesia)

5. Well-Being for First Nations
Measuring What Matters to Community Well-Being
Why a Community Asset Assessment?
Natural Capital Assessment
The Well-Being Community Planning Process
Benefits of a Well-Being-Based Approach to Community Development

6. The Well-Being Workplace
Well-Being at Work
Businesses That Operate on Well-Being Principles
The Well-Being Corporation
Doing Well By Doing Good: The Flourishing Well-Being Enterprise
Well-Being: The Best Interest of Business
A Corporate Culture of Well-Being
Well-Being By Design

7. Accounting for Enterprise Well-Being
The Origins of Auditing
Toward Quality-of-Life Auditing and Accounting
Well-Being Inventory
Five Assets of Enterprise Well-Being
Measuring Workplace Well-Being
Enterprise Well-Being Index
True Pricing: Full-Cost Accounting
Making the Business Case of Well-Being
Asset Valuation and Verification with Well-Being in Mind

8. Well-Being Impact Investing
Virtuous Financial Leadership
Lintel Capital LLC: Investment for Good
Well-Being Impact Investment Funds
And the Times, They are a-Changin'

9. The Community Asset Well-Being Fund
Eliminating Poverty in Cincinnati within a Generation

10. Banking on Well-Being
All Roads Lead to London: The Queen's Banker's Wife
Freeing Economies of the Burden of Interest from Debt-Based Money
A Public Bank for Well-Being
What is a Public Bank and Could It be Structured to support the Economy of Well-being?
The Bank of North Dakota and ATB (Alberta Treasury Branch): The Most Important Public Banks in North America
Alberta Treasury Branch: North America's Best Kept Secret
Why Could ATB Financial Become the Model for Public Well-Being Banks Across North America?
The Future of Money: Well-Being Currency

11. Personal Well-Being
Well-Being is a Choice
Money, Your Life and Happiness

Epilogue
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Economists often admit the many shortcomings of GDP, but then say, however it is the best numerical proxy we have for unmeasurable welfare. Anielski demonstrates that there are other better proxies, not to mention direct experience, common observation, and traditional wisdom. This is a book to be taken seriously."
— Herman Daly, Emeritus Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

"It's time we measured how organizations in all sectors are contributing to the five capitals that matter. Mark shows how."
— Bob Willard, author, The Sustainability Advantage

"One powerful answer to the struggling financial world around us. It very thoughtfully and clearly identifies how our existing debt and wealth measurement systems no longer serve our communities and our ability to live together in a just and balanced society. This is a great book, gracefully written, founded on doable optimism."
—

-Peter Block, author, Flawless Consulting and co-author, The Abundant Community

"Mark has been implementing happiness-creating economic system redesigns with towns, provinces, tribes, and nations. Mark has identified the major aspects of the current system that we must change to create a stable and happy society and what to do instead."
— Gifford Pinchot III, author, Intrapreneuring and President Emeritus and Co-founder of the world's first school with an MBA of Sustainable Business

"Mark Anielski is one of those rare human beings who is equally at home with his First Nation peoples of North America as he is with European Canadians, with the indigenous people of Bhutan, as he is with the Chinese and the Tahitians. As such his work is uniquely all encompassing, a gift to those many worlds of which he is able to take integral account."
— Ronnie Lessem, Co-Founder, Trans4m Centre for Integral Development, and Professor of Management, Da Vinci Institute

"Mark Anielski has written a book that will, if attention is paid, open a new era in economics that will emancipate us from the lose-lose calculus of our current reasoning. His argument is compelling, rooted as it is in lived social reality."
— Walter Brueggemann, Professor of Theology, Columbia Theological Seminary

"You hold in your hand a rare synthesis between the deep understanding of the workings of our economy and a pragmatic methodology of implementation and integration towards a systemic well-being economy."
—

-Robert Dellner, Head of Impact Strategy at Lintel Capital, Co-Founder of the Centre for Integral Finance Economics (CIFE)

"A 21st century manifesto that addresses the problem of economic inequality. Those who turn to Anielski will find the rationale for demanding change in the relationship between government and its citizens back to its original intent—government that utilizes its economic tools to build an economy of well-being for its citizens."
— Luke Eckblad, Investment Banker, Boustead Institute

"This book redefines what we mean by "The Wealth of Nations." It is a wonderful guide for people who want to take a path away from the monetization of everyday life."
— -John McKnight, co-author, The Abundant Community and author, The Careless Society

"Anielski has been a leading innovator on the cutting edge of well-being studies for three decades. I have been recommending Mark's work to people for decades, and now have another book to suggest."
— Marilyn Waring, Professor, Auckland Universityand author, If Women Counted

"Mark Anielski calls us to radically realign our economics with our anthropology, gives us a toolkit and the metrics to do so, and demonstrates different possible outcomes through concrete case studies."
— Seng-Kong Tan, Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Singapore

"Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, would have applauded Mark Anielski for writing this book. Building a world of hope, where neighbours help neighbours is to look beyond monetary profit."
— Alfred Nikolai, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

"Like a pamphleteer of old, Anielski pushes into your hands a challenge to the existing system with a bold proposal of how it can be changed."
— Ian Glassford, Chief Financial Officer, Servus Credit Union