This is interesting.
But I don't think Layard's ideas would work. It seems to me that taking anti-capitalist steps to make people happier would just have negative impacts on the economy and growth rates, which wouldn't help anyone. I think people will be unhappy either way. Happiness is a choice. Look at Europe – they have more vacation and shorter workweeks, but many of them are still envious of American wealth. To me, this sounds like a social/psychological problem, not an economic one.
wow, rob – what a way to start blogging – this 1st post was profound. After working on every continent and living on 3 of them, my experience has always been that more wealth definitely equates to less happiness – without exception, people in countries with high unemployment rates are happier than the average US resident. The ideals we strive for in modern, western, capitalist culture put up incredible barriers to being happy – and the (high) quality of life we take for granted makes it difficult to appreciate what we have – the next US generation, with their “entitlement” issues is going to be even more unhappy as they mature – for a very good book on this subject, I highly recommend “the art of happiness”; it gave me incredible insight into why the people who should (logically?) be happiest, are not.