roachboy

but if you want to talk about well-being, then (again) the problem arises of what that means.

one could consider well-being as relational, in the sense that a measure of well-being can refer to system criteria. this would imply that the overall socio-economic context matters when you try to think about how particular social positions define themselves.

this seems axiomatic. i am bewildered by claims to the contrary. they don't make any fucking sense. it doesn't matter that they are consistent with conservative political views--except in that it functions as a little demonstration--as if any were needed--that those economic views make no sense either.

another--which is being argued for in the op, and which continues to be argued for--to the extent that refusing to consider basic questions can be confused with argument---would treat well-being as entirely subjective.
this would be the "how do you feel today" index.
"are you feeling ok?"
"how many of you feel ok?"

these are fundamentally different.

without stipulating "relative to what" any measure is meaningless.

and this before you get to the rat's nest:
(a) how you'd go about *measuring* "well-being"--which is self-evidently linked to how you define the term...

and even worse (b) how you'd go about distinguishing "well-being" from a reflection of ideological factors.

by the last point, i basically mean is--for example---if we live in a consumer culture in which every commodity is pitched at potential buyers as a gateway to happiness at one level or another, then an overall effect of the range of such pitches is to imply--continually--that you, the consumer--are happy--but in such a way that this happiness can be perfected and that perfectedness is always one commodity away--that this opens onto an infinite series is irrelevant. but you see the problem: well-being can be a function of what an old french communist party intello-type called interpellation: that is of the way in which you, spectator, are positioned by the way in which data that passes through a particular instituted space (advertising and its relay systems). so the sense of well-being can measure nothing more than the subjective sense of adjustedness to norms which are derived from the cumulative effect of advertising--in which case an index can measure nothing meaningful beyond the efficacy of advertising.

this loops back around onto the question of what you think economic data is supposed to do. if you expect it to provide an accurate image of the system, then "well-being"--particularly a subjective notion of it--is close to worthless. but if you think economic data is an extension of political ideology, then it can fit right into the affective circle-jerk at the center of conservative economic theory--and this because data about the actual world is secondary for most of us--the folk who exercise power may or may not need it--but you and i definitely dont need it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite