I'm Henry VIII I am...

A while ago I ran a workshop with a group of carers who are caring for their spouse/significant other. The participants were mostly in their 60s or older, with a handful of carers in their 40s.

At some point, there was a airing of grievances about benefits and allowances. A number of the older participants vigorously shared their views that some benefits are mis-directed or too generous. It was the familiar inter-generational conflict about whether poverty is absolute or relative. There was a vilification of any claim of poverty from people who had a television, DVD player, mobile phone, carpets,[name a common consumer item] etc.

I'd missed a little bit of the conversation, so I was startled when some of the participants began to sing, I'm Henry the Eighth I am. The conversation had gone beyond "People today, don't know they're born" to an agreement that there was an argument for saying that Henry VIII did not have access to the entertainment options and food choices that we all enjoy today.

I mentioned the Henry VIII reference to a friend who promptly said, "Terry Pratchett wrote something like that". He sent me this quotation in an email - although, sadly, without the source.

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'.

As ever, I fall back onto consideration of Ben Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. Friedman argues that economic growth is essential to moral, social, political and cultural progress. Economic growth means that we change the attributes of what we judge to be poverty or a socially acceptable standard of living. Friedman outlines the comparisons that underlie the influence of income on well-being. For the first, we contrast our present and past circumstances: if we are better off financially that we used to be, and we can buy more with that money, then we feel better off. For the second, we use our present circumstances as a yardstick to compare ourselves to our notional peer group: if we are more prosperous then we feel better; if we are worse off, then we feel worse.

So, we can live lives of such health, convenience and luxury that they eclipse the comparative yardsticks of Henry VIII or The Sun King. I've had a fondness for Louis XIV ever since I discovered that his wife had acres around Versailles rased for a birthday gift for him - it was an attempt to improve the view. I know what people mean when they contrast our medical care, entertainment and food availability to that of past times, but I feel that there is a certain something to be said for being able to commission that nice Mr Handel to write a small something for our upcoming fireworks party. Our musicians will be floating during this fireworks party, you understand. This went as well as most of George II's schemes, but I think you know what I mean.

Of course we take a lot of our blessings for granted - that is one of the consequences of economic growth. However, from time to time, and without being too absolutist about it, it probably does do us good to recall how much things have improved for so many of us. Unless, of course, the Friedman comparisons just don't work for huge shifts in life circumstances. More woolly thinking - but I really have to stop writing so many of these entries so late at night.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project