Wellbeing Society

In the late 1700s economist-philosophers identified welfare, or wellbeing, as the goal of human society. However, in the era before modern computing, economists simplified this objective in order to be able to model the economy. Over time, wellbeing became proxied by money, and economic models came to assume "homogeneous, rational, utility-maximizing agents interacting in timeless self-equilibrating markets." Later, we adopted Gross Domestic Product as a default goal for society despite explicit warnings from Simon Kuznets, its originator, that a measure of national production could not measure welfare.

The use of financial capital as a proxy for wellbeing left us with relatively unmeasured and ungoverned stocks of ecological, human and social wealth. As a result, we have been growing money, hoping that wellbeing would result, but too often what appears as income, profits, and economic growth reflects the liquidation of the human capability, natural wealth and social cohesion that form the foundations of prosperity.

Rational decisions taken to maximize short-term objectives within this system thus result in behavior that is detrimental to our current and future wellbeing: companies that sell unhealthy food to kids without picking up the tab for the treatment of their early-onset diabetes; AI technologies that create value for a few by learning from existing knowledge without compensation for creators; and businesses that freely deplete natural wealth. What appears as economic growth often reflects the liquidation of the natural wealth and social cohesion that are key to the stability of our planetary health nest.

We are at a tipping point in human history. Earth system risks are rising. Geopolitics are unstable. But we have also reached positive tipping points: in clean energy, in sustainable health care, and in our growing ability to measure and model interrelationships between prosperity, security, health, ecological systems and strong social foundations.