April 2007
Can wealth guarantee happiness?
This and other issues...
Why More Doesn't Satisfy
It's Coffee With Sam at Grump's
GreenScape at the Park
Here's a thought!
Dear Friend,
In July 1776, Thomas Jefferson claimed the pursuit of happiness as a basic human right. This might well have been the last time that happiness was officially proposed as a national objective. Yet our sense of happiness is not created by the abundance of things we possess, but by a sense of community and purpose. It's about families, time for leisure. It's about living a less complicated life, caring for the environment and the ecological stability of the Chesapeake Bay. Please take time to read the following article by Bill McKibben.
Don't forget GreenScape Day, April 21st, in Ward 7! Join midshipmen from the Naval Academy and many of your fellow Annapolitans as we plant more than 1,000 trees and shrubs at Back Creek Nature Park!
I hope to see you there!
Why having more no longer makes us happy
by Bill McKibben
The formula of human well-being used to be simple: Make money, get happy. So why is the old axiom suddenly turning on us?
For most of human history, the two birds More and Better roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and hope to hit them both. That's why the centuries since Adam Smith launched modern economics with his book The Wealth of Nations have been so single-mindedly devoted to the dogged pursuit of maximum economic production.
Smith's core ideas -- that individuals pursuing their own interests in a market society end up making each other richer; and that increasing efficiency, usually by increasing scale, is the key to increasing wealth --have indisputably worked. They've produced more More than he could ever have imagined. They've built the unprecedented prosperity and ease that distinguish the lives of most of the people reading these words. It is no wonder and no accident that Smith's ideas still dominate our politics, our outlook, even our personalities.
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better has flown a few trees over to make her nest. And that changes everything. Now, with the stone of your life or your society gripped in your hand, you have to choose. It's More or Better.
Which means, according to new research emerging from many quarters, that our continued devotion to growth above all is, on balance, making our lives worse, both collectively and individually. Growth no longer makes most people wealthier, but instead generates inequality and insecurity. Growth is bumping up against physical limits so profound -- like climate change and peak oil -- that trying to keep expanding the economy may be not just impossible but also dangerous. And perhaps most surprisingly, growth no longer makes us happier. Given our current dogma, that's as bizarre an idea as proposing that gravity pushes apples skyward. But then, even Newtonian physics eventually shifted to acknowledge Einstein's more complicated universe.
1. "We can do it if we believe it": FDR, LBJ, and the invention of growth
It was the great economist John Maynard Keynes who pointed out that until very recently, "there was no very great change in the standard of life of the average man living in the civilized centers of the earth." At the utmost, Keynes calculated, the standard of living roughly doubled between 2000 B.C. and the dawn of the 18th century -- four millennia during which we basically didn't learn to do much of anything new. Before history began, we had already figured out fire, language, cattle, the wheel, the plow, the sail, the pot. We had banks and governments and mathematics and religion.
To continue reading this article click here!
Ward 7 community coffee, April 23rd
Yes, you're invited to coffee with Sam and his guests at Grump's Cafe, Thursday, April 23rd, 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Our guest speakers will be Back Creek Nature Park board members Peter Gray and Kippy Manuel. You'll learn about the planned future expansion of the park that will soon be one of the greatest US ecological educational projects. And it's right here in our great Ward 7!
This is also a great opportunity for your to voice your concerns about our community to your alderman. Sam wants to know what you think!
Grump's Café features incredibly delicious breakfasts and beverages at reasonable prices!
GreenScape April 21st at Back Creek Nature Park
Join Naval Academy midshipmen and your Annapolis neighbors as we plant more than 1,000 trees and shrubs at Back Creek Nature Park on GreenScape Day. Bring a shovel and a lot of energy!
Meet us in the main parking lot at 9:00 a.m. Come for an hour or plan to stay the day. Zu Coffee will be providing coffee and we'll have plenty of carbs on hand to keep your energized!
Should you have any questions, contact Mel Wilkins at mel82nd@comcast.net.
Now here's a thought!
"My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned, not bought." --Margaret Chase Smith
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