Special topic – read only if you’re very, very interested!
Oops. Not quite there yet. We haven’t decided on who decides which solutions do bad, better and best. For that purpose, I’ve put together a test panel of 25 societies that together represent almost 60% of the world’s population; over 70% of world gross domestic product; and 50% of all land mass (including empty land masses like Antarctica and Greenland). During this short intermezzo, I’ll explain why I selected the countries that I did.
As stated in the previous chapter, I want to focus on proven solutions. But how to prove what works and what doesn’t work? For that purpose, design engineers have prototypes, conduct user trials and consult consumer panels.
So to imitate those process steps, I’ve used data from a variety of sources on the societies that have had quite a bit of experience with one or more of the solutions that I’ve found and selected from global history.
The ultimate test to whether a system worked somewhere is to find out whether the citizens were sustainably happy under the system. After all, that’s in the title of this book. Sustainable happiness is what we’re after.
Fortunately, since 2012 the United States has regularly reported on average everyday happiness on a global scale. 155 countries have been covered at least four times between 2012 and 2020. Numerically, that is already a pretty decent representation, as there are under 200 sovereign states in the world. These 155 countries also contain almost 100% of the world population; almost 90% of all land mass; and produce almost 100% of world GDP.
This first criterion has excluded North Korea: there are too few reports on the happiness of its people. I don’t think we’ll be missing a lot of valuable information…
So after this first slection round, the list of societies in our panel has been narrowed down to 155. Still too many to explore and discuss in depth, so I’ve narrowed it down again to a test panel of 25 countries to represent the world as a whole. Together, these 25 countries still contain almost 60% of Earth’s population and include eight of the ten resource richest countries in the world.
These 25 countries were also selected because they form a diverse yet relevant cross-section of the world. For instance, per (sub)continent, the most populous country was selected. And also per world religion, the most populous country was included.
Because of the great relevance of average everyday happiness, the entire top ten of happiest countries in the world has been included: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Iceland, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia.
Finally, some interesting outliers have been included as well. First of them is Costa Rica. That little country in Central America so often leads the Happy Planet Index as developed by the New Economics Foundation, as it combines a high level of average everyday happiness with a relatively small ecological footprint. So it is particularly interesting to examine this country in more depth, just in case its country design could easily and sustainably be replicated elsewhere.
Ireland has been included, because it is only one of two major independent Anglo-Saxon countries with a system of proportional representation; has an interesting way of electing its president; and scores pretty well when it comes to sustainable happiness. Especially when comparing it to its closest peers, other Anglo-Saxon countries.
So I did do a bit of cherrypicking here and there. We need to learn from the best; not from the worst. But to compensate for that, I’ve regularly zoomed out again and looked at all 155 countries with sufficient data on average everyday happiness.
The United States has been included for obvious reasons: largest economy in the world, strongest military, biggest ecological footprint in the world, considered leader of the free world by many, leader in popular culture, most ambitious country in the world, technological powerhouse and so on. Like I said: obvious reasons.
Tiny Luxembourg (just over 600,000 citizens) is included because like Costa Rica, it is an outlier that should be looked into. But this time for negative reasons. Lovely Luxembourg is a pretty happy country (16th on average), but the ecological and carbon footprints of the average Luxembourger are some of the largest in the world. Apart from perhaps some small tax haven states, the GDP per capita of the average Luxembourger is the highest on Earth. It’s not even close.
The United Kingdom is included because even if it is only a medium sized country in terms of population size as well as modest in natural resources, it still has an enormously powerful position in the world. It has close ties to the United States, the EU and its former empire. It has a powerful position in the financial sector and historically, the way the world works today has been heavily influence by the British Empire that dominated the world in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th Century.
Germany has been included for also being one of the economic leaders in the world, the largest democracy with proportional representation, the leading country in the EU, also being a technological powerhouse and so on. But also because of its fascinating but brutal history over the last century or so. Today, despite its brutal past, it is a well respected member of the international community and an inspiration for other countries in many ways. Peaceful ways!
If there’s one country in the world that might have learned the hard way from its own mistakes to find out what is needed to achieve a high level of sustainable happiness for the many, it might be Germany. They tried and tested quite a few systems of government over the last century or so and stuck to what they have now. That’s German Grundlichkeit for you!
The whole world would probably have wished the Germans hadn’t been quite as thorough in the 20th Century, but let’s not dismiss the conclusions of the experiments because of the immoral way the tests were conducted. So Germany is a highly valued member of our test panel!
Brazil has been included for being one of the resource richest countries in the world; being the guardian of the Amazon rain forest; the most specie rich area on Earth’s surface; and being both the most populous and the largest country in Latin America. For Brazil to have a high level of sustainable happiness is very important to the rest of the world.
Saudi Arabia is included because it is also one of the resource richest countries in the world. With its 33 million citizens, it is not a large country, but through its ties to both the rest of the Arab world and to the West, it commands a powerful position in global society. Both its military and foreign spending show a lot of ambition. So even though Saudi Arabia isn’t the most populous Arab country by far, it seems to be the most interesting one to include in the test panel. Sorry Egypt!
Japan is included for being an economic powerhouse and one of the technologically most advanced countries in the world. Especially compared to China and India (the other two Asian countries making this shortlist), it is a relatively Western oriented country.
Being by far the largest country and one of the resource richest countries in the world, Russia should never be ignored. Though it may not quite be the superpower it was until the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia should never be underestimated. Whenever overambitious expansionists did that in the past, it became their downfall.
Indonesia is included as the most populous country in Oceania and also the world’s most populous Muslim country. Islam of course being the second largest world religion.
Nigeria is included for being the most populous country on the African continent.
Like the United States, China is included for numerous and obvious reasons. Over the last couple of decades, China has been able to retake its historic place as a superpower. Its economy is projected to become the largest in the world – if it isn’t that already. China is the second most populous country in the world and has a very long history. In fact, it could be argued that China historically is the most sustainable country in the world. A country and culture easily recognisable as Chinese can be traced back roughly three thousand years. A world record. China is also one of the resource richest countries in the world and has shown considerable international ambitions in recent years, like with the New Silk Road project. It is also building its technological and military capabilities.
India is now the most populous country in the world, the largest Hindu nation, one of the resource richest countries in the world and by far the world’s largest democracy (at least according to all the classifications by The Economist between 2006 and 2020). Both economically and technologically, India is also growing rapidly. It is a force to be reckoned with.
Finally, on a sad note, I’ve also included South Sudan as a point of reference. It has the unfortunate 155th and last position on the list of happiest countries in the world, according to the UN World Happiness reports.
On average, the people of South Sudan rate their everyday happiness as a 3.3 on a scale from 0 to 10. Its recent history has been violent and chaotic. So much so, that maybe the region can hardly be recognised as a functional country. Yet.
However discomforting it may be, I’m going to use the negative example of South Sudan as a warning for the level of chaos and unhappiness we might fall back to if we don’t get our act together as humanity on important sustainability issues. Perhaps even a country as stable and well-organised as the Netherlands, which has done so exceptionally well over the last half millennium or so, might lose its footing when climate change isn’t brought to a halt and sea levels rise beyond what we can manage.
That horror scenario will of course never happen. (knock on wood) Because we’ll do better. Much better.
But just to be certain, I strongly believe we need to improve the way we (= humanity) make our decisions. Every four years or so in our roles as voters: decisions on how we want to be governed. On a daily basis in our roles as consumers: decisions on which products and services to buy and use. As producers: what products and services to put out there. And so on.
So that concludes this short intermezzo in which I introduced our test panel of 25 reference countries. It’s not a random selection, but all countries have been added for a reason. Either because they are important for the sustainable happiness for all on a planetary scale; because they do remarkably bad; or because they do remarkably well.
With that said, I think we’re finally ready to look at the first parameter of the ten we’ll be looking at: ways to measure the success of societies.