The Economics of Happiness

February 1 – 19, 2010

One, two and three week options

Tim Kasser, Dasho Karma Ura, Nic Marks, Per Espen Stoknes & Andrew Simms

This course is open for bookings.

Already booked on the course? Click here for course resources

Masters credits available subject to University approval.

Course overview

As societies and individuals accumulate more and more wealth, their levels of well-being do not increase at a corresponding rate. And in fact, private affluence can have many negative impacts both for other people and the planet’s ecosystems. This course looks at the connection between money and happiness at a psychological and a systemic level. What can we as individuals do to combat the dominance of materialism, and how can our economic system be reformed so that it promotes well-being rather than economic growth?

This course is intended for: people working in community development, education, politics and policymaking; students and teachers of economics and social sciences; those interested in understanding how our current economic system affects their lives.

Week 1: Tim Kasser – Materialism and well-being

The first week will cover five main topics. It will begin with an overview of the research documenting that people report lower levels of personal well-being when they strongly value the materialistic aims of money, image, and status that are so encouraged by consumer, capitalist societies. Second, we will discuss research that has explored how materialism can undermine positive social behaviors and ecological sustainability, thus influencing the well-being of other people and species. Third, we will consider the two main types of causes that research shows lead people to strongly endorse materialistic values. Fourth, we will discuss how the economic system of American Corporate Capitalism creates ideologies and institutions that encourage materialism and discourage “intrinsic” values for self-acceptance, affiliation, and community feeling. Finally, we will discuss various ways to apply a basic strategy in order to decrease materialistic values in our personal lives and in society at large.

Week 2: Dasho Karma Ura – Gross National Happiness (GNH): Lessons from Bhutan, and Nic Marks – Implications of Bhutan’s Experience in the International Context

During this week, participants will hear about the challenges of incorporating values into a real economy.

Monday – Wednesday: Dasho Karma Ura

Monday: A Plan to Realize GNH. The problems of development in Bhutan, as a representation of development problems in general, will be sketched from the perspective of GNH. The talk will outline a set of initiatives to be taken over the immediate to long term.

Tuesday: The Concept of GNH. The evolution of GNH will be traced from its philosophical foundations and historical antecedents, with reference to authors such as HM King Khesar and HM King Jigmi Singye Wangchuck and the greater social and economic milieu of a Buddhist polity. The talk will underline the applicability of GNH anywhere as its practice in some places has shown already. It will also introduce the diffusion of GNH through conferences and media, and how works on GNH in progress in Bhutan and elsewhere are being stimulated and informed by efforts at redefining progress.

Wednesday: Measurement of GNH. The process for construction of GNH index and indices, from periodic surveys to identification of sensitive variables to choice of aggregating data, will be explored. GNH Index will be differentiated from other major development indices such as HDI, HPI, GDP, QOL, SWB, GPI and so forth.

Thursday and Friday: Nic Marks

Nic will begin by looking at the GNH concept in an international context, i.e. in relation to other measures that are used or are proposed, such as new OECD indicators of progress, the Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Happy Planet Index etc. He will then move on to look at other nef work on policy models of well-being and the five ways to well-being.

Week 3, Monday – Wednesday: Per Espen Stoknes – Psychology and Money

The first three days of this week will explore the psychology of money. Briefly put: Why have we handed over the running of the world to money and economists? Economics treats money quite mechanistically, avoiding the emotional, symbolic and social dimensions of money. This week will open up a relational view on money, exploring how money is story, image and myth just as much as it is a means of exchange and store of value. By viewing money as culture and philosophy, it becomes evident that the money of today is a system of symbols that society itself has developed over several centuries. It is in future fully possible to set up new and complementary monetary systems in service of other purposes, if and when circumstances require it. The following topics will be explored in an interactive, experienced-based way during these three days:

Week 3, Thursday: Andrew Simms – Transforming our economic system

Andrew Simms will talk with participants about work currently being carried out by nef (new economics foundation) and other organisations to transform the model of economics which has dominated our society for decades. For example, the (un)Happy Planet Index, a global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world’s nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there, has produced some surprising data and given rise to the Happy Planet Charter which gives clear goals for individuals, organisations and nations to aim for if they are to achieve truly sustainable well-being. Participants will be encouraged to find their own ways to work towards these goals once they return home.

Read comment and review regarding The New Economics co-written by Andrew Simms.

Teachers

After receiving his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Rochester, Tim Kasser accepted a position at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he is currently Professor of Psychology. He has authored over sixty scientific articles and book chapters on materialism, values, goals, and quality of life, among other topics. Tim’s first book, The High Price of Materialism, was published by MIT Press in 2002; his second book (co-edited with Allen D. Kanner), Psychology and Consumer Culture, was released by the American Psychological Association in 2004.

From 2005-2009 Tim served as an Associate Editor at Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Personality Processes and Individual Differences. He also works with activist groups that try to protect children from commercialisation and that encourage a more “inwardly rich” lifestyle than what is offered by consumerism. Tim lives with his wife, two sons, and assorted animals in the Western Illinois countryside.

Dasho Karma Ura is the President of the Centre for Bhutan studies, a non-aligned, objective, multi-disciplinary and autonomous social science research centre focused on Gross National Happiness and its applications, and on the culture and history of Bhutan. Until recently, he was one of the five eminent appointees of His Majesty the 5th King, Jigmi Khesar, to the 25-member National Council, which elected him as its Vice Chair. He is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford and postgraduate of Edinburgh University, Scotland. He is the author of books: Hero with a Thousand Eyes, Ballad of Pemi Tshewang Tashi, Deities and Archers, and Faith and Festival in Nimalung. His essays and articles have appeared in international journals, magazines and books. He has participated in many international fora and TV programmes. He is also a painter, who has designed temple murals and thangkhas on large scales. In 2006, he was conferred the ancient and well-known title of Dasho by His Majesty the 4th Druk Gyalpo.

Nic Marks founded nef’s award-winning Centre for Well-being and has led the well-being programme at nef since 2001. He is also an advisor to the Centre for Bhutanese Studies (part of the Civil Service in Bhutan), working on the construction of an indicator for the Bhutanese concept of promoting GNH instead of GNP. Nic is a recognised expert in the field of well-being research and undertakes innovative research in the use of well-being indicators in public policy environments. Nic has expertise in relation to individual, social, economic and environmental indicators of well-being and has previously applied his work in policy fields as diverse as sustainable development, health and social care, education, culture and the arts, and employment. Nic has experience of devising methodologies to measure well-being, statistical and analytical skills, and a proven ability to interpret findings in a way that makes sense for policy makers, practitioners and the general public. He also has a particular interest in how objective and subjective measures can be used alongside each other to create national and local accounts of well-being and in how we can best increase well-being within our environmental limits.
Nic is regularly asked to attend speaking engagements and occupies a number of advisory positions as a result of his pioneering research. He was the lead author of nef’s innovative Happy Planet Index, a global index of human well-being and environmental impact. He was an advisor to the UK Government Office for Science’s Foresight project on “mental capital and well-being” which was published in October 2008. He devised, together with others at the centre for well-being, the model and methodology behind nef’s new report on National Accounts of Well-being, which gained extensive media coverage when launched in late January 2009.

Per Espen Stoknes is an organisational psychologist, senior lecturer at BI Norwegian School of Management where he is Co-Director of Centre for Climate Strategy. He has worked both as a clinical therapist and as an consultant in scenario planning for major national and international organisations. Per Espen loves storytelling, the outdoors, piano improvisations and poetry. He has published three books, lastly: Money and Soul: The psychology of money and the transformation of capitalism.

Andrew Simms is Policy Director and head of the Climate Change programme at nef (new economics foundation). He is author most recently of Ecological Debt and co-editor of Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? You can read Andrew’s blog on Guardian online here.
Read comment and review regarding The New Economics co-written by Andrew Simms.

Course Fees

For businesses: One week £1,200, Two weeks £1,800, Three weeks £2,200

For individuals, NGOs, Educational & Public Sector Organisations: One week £700, Two weeks £1,300, Three weeks £1,800

All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

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Discounts
10% for residents of South West England
20% with five or more people coming from the same organisation on the same course

(only one discount applicable per booking)

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College

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