KEY POINTS:
I just took the dog for a walk around Mt Victoria in Devonport. It was a perfect winter afternoon - sunny and sparkling. From this vantage point you can see the boats on the shiny harbour, the glittering skyline of the city and the green volcanic cones poking out. The kids had just got out of class at Devonport Primary. A gaggle of boys were chaotically running around in St Paul's cemetery - a bit like the dog, really. They were yelling, but I couldn't make out anything they said - "Ryan is a poo"? - but they sounded so happy, with their skinned knees and polo shirts and Kung Fu Panda backpacks.
I am very fortunate to live here. But am I happier because I compare this experience with other places I have lived that are not so priddy, where the kids used to tag the pavement and pull out the trees. Can we only be happy if we compare our wealth, financially and spiritually, and think we're doing better than others? In the UK, the Conservative Party says yes. It has undergone a shift from thinking of poverty in absolute terms - meaning straightforward material deprivation - to defining it in relative terms. Ideologically, the Tories have ditched Winston Churchill's attitude to poverty in favour of Guardian commentator Polly Toynbee's, who writes on the social exclusion of what we, in this country, call the underclass.
I am not sure the Tories are on the right track - and not just because capping David Beckham's salary will not make anyone on the breadline feel richer. What makes some people feel excluded from society is often not a lack of material comforts - thanks to The Warehouse - but a lack of spiritual and emotional resources. And there are more useful ways to frame the concept of wealth.
I was brought up being constantly reminded to look at others who have less than you. This is no longer a fashionable attitude. These days you are supposed to look up to those who are your "heroes" and "role models" - David Beckham and Miley Cyrus - and strive to be like them. But 1970s cod psychology was much more effective when it comes to being contented with your lot. My mother used to talk about Maslov's hierarchy of needs (water, food, shelter) and say that if you had those, you had no reason not to be happy. We had a copy of that hideously schmaltzy piece of writing, the Desiderata, on the wall. "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." It is a bogus piece of writing - people thought it was handed down from some wise monk from the 17th century, but in fact it was written by a rather drippy American lawyer called Max Ehrmann in 1927.
It might be sentimental claptrap, but the idea of not comparing yourself to others is smart. London School of Economics academic Richard Layard's 2005 book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science found that despite greater material wealth, on average people are no happier today than they were 50 years ago. Our bigger wage packet makes us no happier because our neighbour has also got a flashier car. The Conservatives hope that accepting the concept of relative poverty will succeed in changing their image as the "nasty party". Good luck with that. Personally, I say forget whether everyone has flat-screen TVs and just think about making sure kids have full tummies.
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My piece last week about employers hiring mothers part-time riled some readers. One employer said he found it difficult to hire mothers because he can't specify who he wants in job advertisements. Another reader, a grandmother, disagreed that mothers are productive workers. "My husband has never employed anyone who is in their child-bearing years or who has children younger than 10 years old. He can't afford to and I'm sure there are many small businesses who are in the same position. It doesn't matter how much you can power through in six hours - a lot of other staff do the same. Employers and staff don't like it - you're kidding yourself if you think they're going to employ a mother with young children if they have a choice."
deborah@coneandco.com
