Prosperity is the state of flourishing, thriving, good fortune and / or successful social status. [1] Prosperity often encompasses wealth but also includes others factors which can be independent of wealth to varying degrees, such as happiness and health.
Competing notions of prosperity
Economic notions of prosperity often compete or interact negatively
with health, happiness, or spiritual notions of prosperity. For example,
longer hours of work might result in an increase in certain measures of
economic prosperity, but at the expense of driving people away from
their preferences for shorter work hours.[2] In Buddhism, prosperity is viewed with an emphasis on collectivism and spirituality. This perspective can be at odds with capitalistic notions of prosperity, due to their association with greed.[3] Data from social surveys show that an increase in income does not result in a lasting increase in happiness; one proposed explanation to this is due to hedonic adaptation and social comparison,
and a failure to anticipate these factors, resulting in people not
allocating enough energy to non-financial goals such as family life and
health.[4]
Debate under economic growth
Economic growth
is often seen as essential for economic prosperity, and indeed is one
of the factors that is used as a measure of prosperity. The Rocky Mountain Institute
has put forth an alternative point of view, that prosperity does not
require growth, claiming instead that many of the problems facing
communities are actually a result of growth, and that sustainable development requires abandoning the idea that growth is required for prosperity.[5][6]
The debate over whether economic growth is necessary for, or at odds
with, human prosperity, has been active at least since the publication
of Our Common Future in 1987, and has been pointed to as reflecting two opposing worldviews.[7] See How Persistent is Prosperity? (video) from Marginal Revolution University
Synergistic notions of prosperity
Many distinct notions of prosperity, such as economic prosperity, health, and happiness, are correlated or even have causal
effects on each other. Economic prosperity and health are
well-established to have a positive correlation, but the extent to which
health has a causal effect on economic prosperity is unclear. There is
evidence that happiness is a cause of good health, both directly through
influencing behavior and the immune system, and indirectly through social relationships, work, and other factors.[8] One study which advances a holistic definition of prosperity is the Legatum Prosperity Index.
Ecological perspectives
In ecology, prosperity can refer to the extent to which a species flourishes under certain circumstances.[9][10]
No comments:
Post a Comment