Economia, Neoliberismo e Felicità: un quadro critico

The aim of this thesis is to give a small contribution to build an analytic framework of western societies and economics, assuming that our economic and social realities can – and I argue should - be different from what they are right now. In the first chapter, I will go through some key events that marked our economic history since the end of WWII and the Bretton Woods conferences. I will highlight how the neoliberal counterrevolution of the ‘80s was a turning point that must be given its due attention if we are to understand the economics of today. I will then show how the economic crisis that followed the COVID-19 epidemic has exposed most of the contradictions of the neoliberal ideology and of today’s economy, and the proposals made to react to it are blatantly insufficient. The second chapter will deal with some of the structural issues that economic as a discipline has. I will try to show that some elements the mainstream economics analysis is built upon could be non-completely reliable and self-referential. These assumptions must be questioned and challenged if we are to overcome mainstream economics’ dominance of the economic field and open it up to different, new approaches. The third chapter will shift the focus to society and how it creates certain stories and narratives to justify the status quo. In order for us to withstand an unjust and unequal society, we need to believe its configuration is inevitable and can be explained with rational means. A critical reading of these narratives is the first step to move over them. The fourth chapter, after a brief introduction on the philosophical history of happiness, will look at some key data on subjective well-being in relation to GDP for western countries. There is strong evidence showing how, despite their economic output growing steadily after WWII, no significant improvement in the overall well-being of the population has been obtained. Once a certain threshold is reached, more money does not make us happier, especially if said money makes our societies more unequal. On the other hand, time spent in relationships with our peers seems to have beneficial effects on our lives. The fifth chapter will try to propose concrete ideas to tackle some the issues I have brought forth in the previous chapters. They are not definitive solutions, but rather easy to implement and high-impact policies that should buy us the time to rethink some key institutions of our society.