Happiness is now on the agenda and its official

Following the discourse in policy and political circles since the financial crash has been a giddy but fascinating ride.  The latest development is that President Sarkozy has called for the way we assess GDP and national economic performance needs, to be reassessed and that happiness and health need to be measured and added to the picture.  This would have the impact of pushing France much higher up world economic rankings and closing the gap with the USA. 

What gives the speech added impetus is he is drawing on the work of US economist and Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and the publication of the results of the Commission of Economic Performance and Social Progress, set up by the French government of which he was a leading member. Stiglitz is quoted in the FT (print version but not online) as saying "What we measure affects what we do." (Useful to remember for PR campaigns as well.)   He then goes on to say "Behind the cult of the figures, behind all these statistical and accounting structures there is also the cult of the market that is always right."  (A nice nod to Foucault.)

What is interesting for PR is the way that the dominant paradigm of market force supremacy which has stood relatively unchallenged for 40 years continues to be worked over from a range of sources.  It would be very interesting to hear how this discourse is influencing the work of the large PR agencies and in-house teams for major global companies.  Second, it also raises issues about the way that PR programmes are measured - what metrics are being used and are the metrics all market based or is there some debate going on in the industry about using metrics which might have a wider social context.  Finally, it could be argued that what Sarkozy and Stiglitz are wanting to measure and to value in an economy are aspects such as social cohesiveness even social capital.  Some commentators have argued that PR is about organisational social capital and that makes this intiative particularly interesting and also one which will further add to the interesting discourse developments over the coming months and years.