It’s not the economy, stupid: wellbeing is the real vote-winner | Richard Layard

In 2011, I launched a campaign called Action for Happiness. A week before the World Happiness summit, the question is: why can't we all be more content?

What kind of society do we want? The most obvious answer is simple: we want people to be happy. We want our children to be as happy as possible, so why not everyone else? The goal should be a world where people enjoy their lives, and feel satisfied and fulfilled.

This noble idea was born in the 18th-century Enlightenment. It was probably the most important idea of the modern age. Yet somehow it is seldom talked of today in debates about our future. Some people say it is too ambitious; others say it is not ambitious enough. It is neither. We simply want to make people as happy as possible. And, especially, we want to reduce misery.