In October, French President Nicolas Sarkozy rather gleefully presented a report written by a group of distinguished economists. Led by Nobel Laureate and Clinton administration official Joseph Stiglitz, the academics concluded that increasing the gross domestic product or GDP to an appreciable extent in a sustained manner should not be the obsessive goal of public policy.
Instead, the group suggested a different understanding of policy objectives and a broader gauge of public well-being. Their indicator looks at matters such as income inequality, public health, education levels, and the environment.
It’s not entirely new — a similar genuine progress indicator (GPI) has been discussed for 20-odd years. But this broader measure now has, in Sarkozy, an important and energetic champion.
Beneath the surface, the Stiglitz report represents deep resentment of the success of what is often called the Anglo-Saxon or American economic model — one that adheres to capitalist principles much more closely than does the French. It is a defiant justification of a statist economy and a way to rationalize Europe’s poor economic performance under existing metrics.
No doubt the commission and their patron felt emboldened by the financial crisis and the current low esteem in which laissez-faire economics is held. For many of the French, the report is also likely to be viewed as part of a broader resistance to American cultural and economic imperialism. It could be compared to French-language protection laws and the vandalism of McDonald’s restaurants by farmers.
I agree there is need for a more expansive understanding of well-being. To be considered a success and a model for emulation, a society must have more than a large and rapidly growing economy. What Sarkozy and Co. propose to do, however, is exchange one indirect indicator with another — even if theirs is quite comprehensive. Surely a better way of understanding whether the general quality of life is good in a nation is to find out what its residents think.
There are many ways to do this. The first is quite simple: you ask them. If you do you find that maybe GDP isn’t quite as erroneous an indicator of basic well-being after all. Over the past decade, the Pew Global Attitudes Project consistently has revealed a very strong correlation between economic expansion and the happiness of citizens, presumably because they are feeling more affluent.
This is particularly the case in rich western democracies. The study has shown repeatedly that Americans and Britons, or those who live with the generally robust Anglo-Saxon model, are appreciably happier in their jobs, with their personal incomes, and in their family lives than the French and Germans.
There are other appropriate indicators. Migration flows are revealing. Of course, national laws, geographical position, and cultural and linguistic association shape individuals’ decisions to migrate. Still, it is surely the case that people generally move to societies that they like and into political and economic systems they admire. People will move away from societies in which they feel stifled and their well-being is deteriorating.
If we use these kinds of measures, it is again clear the Anglo-Saxon model is superior. By far the most popular big-country homes for international migrants are Australia, Canada, and the United States with 6.34, 5.62, and 2.92 migrants per 1,000 of the population in 2008. France’s score was 1.48. All three are comfortably in the top 10 when measured by most indexes of economic freedom. France hardly ever breaks the top 30 in these rankings.
The picture is the same if you focus exclusively on the movement of people between rich countries. The migration patterns of these individuals are presumably less driven by cultural ties and geographic convenience. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data show about 10 times more western Europeans choose to live in the United States than Americans choose to go to Europe. There are generally about 40,000 Americans working in France, but 200,000 French working here. The United States attracts many more highly skilled migrants than it sees well-trained immigrants leave its shores. No other country has a positive balance approaching it.
If you use these measures, it is clear. We can alter the way we grade countries by employing different measures, but people are still going to embrace the same things: prosperity, freedom, and reward for personal accomplishment.
It may be hard for a café intellectual in Paris to believe the church-going married American suburbanite is happy — according to studies done of U.S. citizens, these are three of the most content demographics — but she is. Perhaps her health care is inferior to his. Maybe her kids could go to better schools. But in the aggregate it is the American model that people generally embrace, not the French one.
Andy Taylor is Professor and Chair of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs at N.C. State University.