First off, it's not so bad if the U.S. falls behind Luxembourg or Switzerland or Norway or Ireland in these sorts of polls, because they represent those special cases you talked about: Norway with huge oil reserves and a small population, Ireland with a huge EU windfall, Luxembourg with her very specialized economy. And the other Scandanavian countries always do well in polls like this for some reason, but if you compare Minnesota (our most Scanadanavian state) to Sweden we don't look bad at all.
But the real problem is getting the masses to agree with you. Personally I'm a pretty greenish, low consumption, meditational, book-reading sort of person. But the vast majority of people, in America, in Europe, and in South Asia and Africa, want MORE STUFF. That's how they measure personal happiness. That's the sad fact, and until you figure out how to change it, the PPP per-capita GNP figure is the most accurate way to measure what people want.
Try running a political campaign on your happiness index and see what happens!
e PPP per-capita GNP figure is the most accurate way to measure what people want.
It doesn't measure that at all. You could have PPP per-capita GNP that looked really good if a very small group got all the benefits.
I didn't think their data were freely available, though. The country briefings are freely available, but those do not include median income. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
I've always wondered whether a media PPP figure is available, or even possible (seems like a huge amount of work, even if you break it out into income categories and weight it.) And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
There's also a bunch of stuff at http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp_ppp_cap that generally shows that the US and the traditional EU countries are about par, while the newer members of the EU are lower.
I would like to see a proposal for a set of statistics that SHOULD be used.
But the vast majority of people, in America, in Europe, and in South Asia and Africa, want MORE STUFF. That's how they measure personal happiness. That's the sad fact, and until you figure out how to change it, the PPP per-capita GNP figure is the most accurate way to measure what people want.
GNP has very little to do with the power of "the people" to buy stuff. That is the point. It's a crap way of measuring what you suggested: Migeru suggested that, if you want to measure the ability of people to buy stuff then median income, PPP adjusted, is a good metric.
For developing countries, the HDI is a far better measure, since it measures actual outcomes - nutrition, water, education etc - which are correlated to GDP but not by as much as is often thought.
