France leads well-being revolution

Inventing a new growth which privileges human well-being.

A report ordered by France to economists favours a new way of calculating wealth.  “If the markets were always right, it would be known,” says Nicolas Sarkozy.

In order to prepare the post-crisis world, Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for a “fabulous revolution” which should mean “finishing off the religion of numbers.”

Talking at la Sorbonne on Monday 14 September, during the delivering of his commission’s report, presided by the American economist Joseph Stiglitz on “the economic and social progress performance measure,” the French head of State supported the idea that new compasses were needed to describe citizens’ genuine quality of life.

“For years statisticians statistics showed economic growth as a victory over penury, until it transpired that this growth was making more damage than it was creating good.  How could all those people to whom we are asking to change their way of life and make sacrifices not feel conned?”

To fill the gap between the experts and the day-to-day perceptions of public opinion, the French President would like that the work done by the commission bring on an international overhaul of the functioning of statistics, with France and the EU showing the example.

The key idea?  To put more of a stress on populations’ well-being than on that of economic production.

One year after the fall of Lehman Brothers which would precipitate the world into a crisis, Sarkozy estimates that the Stiglitz commission “blows up the idea of a unique way of thinking.” 

“Behind the idea of the number lies the idea that the [financial] markets always tell the truth. (…) But if the [financial] markets always had an answer for everything, it would be known,” declares the President, re-affirming his supporting of the emergence of “politics of civilisation.”

 Article translated from Le Monde 15/09/09

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