Peter Wrigley and other correspondents (Letters, 14 June) are looking for measures of success that are wider than GDP or the Office for National Statistics (ONS) measures of personal wellbeing. The ONS already publishes a dashboard of 43 objective and subjective measures of national wellbeing, chosen to reflect the things that matter to people. This is currently showing a long-term improvement in only two in every three of the things measured. International comparisons across a broad range of topics are also available, notably in the OECD How’s Life? report and website.
It’s just a thought, but might the Guardian commit to giving statistics like these as much coverage as it does to the GDP and other macro-economic releases? That might help in building a more complete picture of the complexities of how the economy, society and the environment are interconnected.
The point of producing all these measures is for them to be used, not only in government policymaking but also in business and personal decision-making. It is not just about holding governments to account.
Paul Allin
Visiting professor, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London
• Richard Partington in the briefing (Journal, 17 June) is right to point out that GDP only refers to the flow and not the stock of wealth or its distribution. What matters most in the developed world, where most have enough to live on, is not just income but capital – social and environmental (or natural) as well as economic and financial. Unfortunately, key investment decisions, such as building high speed railway lines or new roads, are justified in the UK for their narrow impact on economic growth and time-saving. Little account is taken of their wider and longer-term impacts, especially on creating a fairer society, and improving our common wealth.
So instead of pursuing a single false god, our governments need to change the way investment decisions are made. The easiest place to start is with land and property. There have been many calls for the revaluation of both council and business rates to make the system fairer, and to give back some real power to local authorities. If we charged underused land and property, as they do in many countries such as Denmark and Germany, we could not only build the extra housing we badly need but also create fairer places in all senses of the word. Land reform to support affordable housing, as George Monbiot and others have proposed, needs to be combined with proper regional and spatial planning and devolved government if we are to create the greener future most Guardian readers want to see.
Dr Nicholas Falk
Executive director, the URBED Trust
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