Notes for OECD conference, 6 November 2024

I was invited to join the closing plenary of the OECD’s 7^th Wellbeing Forum in Rome recently. The ask was to reflect on the highlights of the gathering and next steps. But as it was just a few hours after Trump was re-elected, there was no other place to start.

This blog draws on my comments from that session, with some editing and slight re-ordering to make it readable, and some hyperlinks added for reference.

Conference highlights

The best highlight of such a gathering is, of course, seeing friends and colleagues and meeting new ones.

But that has been overwhelmed by a sense of fear of what is coming.

It is common for people working on wellbeing and economic change to say “we need new narratives”.

I am wondering if Trump in effect offers a narrative for the deaths of despair?

The OECD’s How’s Life? Index launched yesterday showed loneliness wellbeing at risk of falling for young men. So we shouldn’t be surprised they are reaching for disruptive political leaders, but we should be asking why?

There are two concept that have been swirling in my head since hearing the US election results:

1. Ontological security, popularised by sociologist Anthony Giddens.
2. And Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory which points to the human needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

As a community of practice working to embed wellbeing in government, we be honest that there’s a misalignment between the outcomes of the economy and these human needs:

• Does Trump show that too many people are lacking the dignity and sense of competence that comes from meaningful work?
• Does Trump and his ilk show that too many people’s autonomy is constrained by decisions taken by others at tables to which they are not invited?
• Do recent political trends show that too many people are facing isolation and loneliness as the economy atomises us and undermines our relatedness?

So while the conference title this year is “strengthening wellbeing approaches for a changing world”, perhaps next time we call it “wellbeing approaches change our world”?
Because thus far, wellbeing approaches haven’t made enough of a difference. In fact, they haven’t touched the sides of an economy which is not working for people and planet.
We need to take that on board and have a good hard look at why not. Is it inadequate implementation or insufficient roll out? Maybe.

But until we attend to power of current economic system, all the good work you are doing on wellbeing approaches in government and social policy will just be bolted on, not built into the design of system. And that means that business as usual, the extractive, inequality generating machine chewing up the planet, will carry on.

Calling out the economy

So, one of the other highlights of the conference was how many people have been calling out economy. It is the countervailing force hindering the impact of wellbeing approaches. The unequal power the economy generates for some means they can actively mitigate against making more of wellbeing approaches.

For example, Jo Swinson pointed to inadequate progress on addressing climate change.

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve rightly pointed to power of fossil fuel industries and the political reluctance to tax their windfall profits.

Kate Raworth called for a rethinking economics for the 21^st century.

We’ve heard about just transitions, not least recognising the pushback if people don’t feel changes are serving them. Ideas for wealth taxes have been laid out. A new social contract concept put forward.

Our colleague from the Global Climate Fund pointed to the inequality of emissions is inversely related to inequality of bearing the brunt of the impact of environmental breakdown. Enrico Giovannini, summarising Sandrine Dixson-Decleve’s calling out of 3 elephants in the room, named the meta elephant of market structures. And on day one the General Secretary talked of the huge fiscal costs of inequality and environmental damage.

A better economic system

It has been observed that the economic system we find ourselves facing is not just, it is not virtuous, it is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, and it does not deliver the goods.

That was John Maynard Keynes writing in 1933.

Now, 90 years later, it hard to deny we have an economy that is not just, not intelligent, not beautiful and which does not deliver the goods.

But we do know what to put in its place. An economy deliberately designed and delivered to serve people and planet, with practices across, purpose, prevention, predistribution, and people power.

Speaking of purpose, another highlight has been the recognition of need for broad understanding of success and multidimensional approach seems to have prevailed. Our Dutch colleague Edwin Howlings warned that his country-people were “happy locusts”, highlighting that we can’t just focus on how we are feeling without taking account of our impact on the planet, which is of course linked to future wellbeing and the wellbeing of those today being flooded, caught in bushfires, and dying because of extreme heat.

A final highlight was the extent to which Adam Smith has been quoted. He worked at the University of Glasgow, where I once worked and more importantly where, in 2017, discussions began behind what become the Wellbeing Economy Government partnership which is all about the sort of collaboration needed to confront business as usual.

How to make the changes needed

Current modes of democracy are thin.  Too thin for the challenges of today.

And yet, when we know a key success factor for these approaches is public consultations, this was conspicuous by its absence in the discussion here.

The process needs to start with a national conversation about what sort of society/ country we want to be (building from first principles) and then construct the technical measurement efforts and wellbeing approaches to governance from there. Not least to build political mandate and cross-party support for the longevity of this work. For evidence of the efficacy of this approach, look at Wales, compared to almost any other context.

It is also beyond time for the baton to be passed from our statistics colleagues, who have done such a magnificent effort creating the statistical base. This is essentially the smorbesgorg measures of progress. Yet GDP is the one governments still reach for first. They reach for the high calorie, sugar hit of GDP, but just getting stuck into cake isn’t good for us.

So we need to pass baton to policy entrepreneurs who make the measures matter and harness them to change policy and shift ways of working. Many such policy entrepreneurs are here, people who like Matt Donoghue from Victorian Treasury, Gary Gillespie from the Scottish Government, and Lindsay Morgan Tracy from Washington State, and so many others.

But there needs to be more engagement between the wellbeing approaches in government works and those ready to roll their sleeves up and grapple with the political economy of why the current extractive system prevails. I can’t see how the world will be changed by “N+1” dashboard. When most people outside conferences like this talk of dashboards and indicators, they are talking about their car, not their quality of life. So we need to link up the technical prowess with community resonance so people see themselves in the measures, so they see the future they want for their children reflected there, and thus pressure their political leaders to make the measures matter.

Compassion as a method for change

One final remark on the how. I think compassion has a critical role to play. Compassion can be a method for changing the system. It enables us to understand why people might be reaching for coping mechanisms, at the pill box and the ballot box; voting for insincere positions of populists. Compassion helps us acknowledge what needs they are lacking and grasping for. And it is the basis for working together on the next steps to build a better future, with an economy that serves us and the planet the foundation.