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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2023
O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?
– Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XIIThe themes of well-being, approval, public happiness and a good social life have been and are at the centre of the civil economy tradition, alongside the relationship between the well-being of nations, of citizens and indicators such as GDP. In recent years, informed by significant segments of civil society, debate has grown significantly on the necessity of surpassing GDP or of adding other indicators that report other dimensions of well-being. Some scholars (such as Amartya Sen, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Joseph Stiglitz) and politicians are considering new measuring techniques of subjective happiness as well-being indicators that can work alongside, or replace, GDP and other objective indicators. France, followed by the United Kingdom, and now Italy as well, have initiated projects aiming to directly measure their citizen’s subjective well-being. This is based on the hypothesis, supported by ample empirical evidence, that in a postmodern world objective indicators are no longer sufficient to express how well people live, which increasingly depends on non-monetary factors such as the quality of the natural environment, the availability of relational goods, and so forth.
However, the scenario that is taking shape is similar to what we might see with a football match. At the end of the game the different statistics appear on the screen: the percentage of possession by each team, fouls committed and suffered, the number of corner kicks, and so forth. However, at the top of the statistics, the number of goals dominates the rest; it is the only statistic that really counts, and which no other statistic listed can remotely modify. Indicators like the Human Development Index (HDI), the ecological impact, in Italy the Benessere Equo e Sostenibile (BES) – “Fair and Sustainable Well-being” – and others all resemble ball possession and corner kicks, which are ancillary to the number of goals scored (or GDP).
Another analogy, one closer to what we will soon need to implement in modern economies, comes from the great multi-stage cycling tours.
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