Happiness Indices: Post-industrial and Pre-Modern

Richard Florida, diving into Gallup research on people's self-reported levels of happiness in different countries, brought to the surface of my mind two contradictory -- or seemingly contradictory -- ideas I have long harbored (sometimes musing fitfully on their apparent contradictoriness) regarding the relative happiness of different societies. 

Here, first (via Sullivan), is Florida's idea, which tracks with one general assumption of mine:

It is not just the level of economic development that matters, but its nature and type. The past several decades have seen a shift from older industrial-style economies and societies to newer post-industrial ones characterized by higher levels of knowledge-based, professional, and creative jobs, more highly educated populations, and a shift toward what Ronald Inglehart has dubbed "post-materialist values" -- a diminished commitment to traditional authority and institutions and a shift toward self-expression, openness, and tolerance. My recent research with Charlotta Mellander and Jason Rentfrow finds evidence that post-industrial socioeconomic structures and post-materialist values matter to the happiness of nations, especially of the most advanced nations...