Can we measure happiness?

via EB:

Interview with Mark Anielski: The Economics of Happiness
Hassan Masum, WorldChanging
We recently had a chance to talk with Mark Anielski, Albertan and author of The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth. Mark has been working for many years on better ways of measuring progress, and this conversation delves into the potential of moving beyond GNP. Whether in measuring a sense of community or valuing ecosystem goods and services, better measures of progress can align us on the targets that really matter.
(9 May 2008)

WorldChanging: Interview with Mark Anielski

Related Links:
ANIELSKI Management Inc.
New Society Publishers - The Economics of Happiness
Amazon.com: The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth ...
YouTube - How to Boil A Frog presents Mark Anielski
Realty Times - The Economics of Happiness: What Do You Value?

Consumerism: Curses and Causes
Rick Wolff, MR Zine (Monthly Review)
US consumerism -- citizens driven excessively to buy goods and services and accumulate consumable wealth -- is cursed almost everywhere. Many environmentalists blame it for global warming. Critics of the current economic disasters often point to home-buying gluttony as the cause. Many see consumerism behind the borrowing that makes the US the world's greatest debtor nation today. Moralists of otherwise diverse motivations agree on attacking consumerist materialism as against spiritual values. Educators blame it for distracting young people's interest from learning. Psychologists attribute mass loneliness and depression to unrealizable expectations of what commodities can deliver to consumers. Physicians decry the diseases, stress, and exhaustion linked to excessive work driven by desire for excessive consumption. Yet, for a long time, exhortations by all such folks have mostly failed to slow, let alone reverse, US consumerism.