I realise that still sounds like I am being dismissive of economists. That's unfair: while not an economist myself I worked for years in a team where everyone else was a professional economist, as was my father-in-law, so I've been talked to a lot about it.

But there are serious alternatives to the financial economics we are used to, and even Cameron played around with it a bit, though he got soundly ridiculed for it, a little unfairly. One is 'Happiness economics' (see Wiki), which says there are other things that matter:
"The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the quantitative and theoretical study of happiness, positive and negative affect, well-being, quality of life, life satisfaction and related concepts, typically combining economics with other fields such as psychology and sociology. It typically treats such happiness-related measures, rather than wealth, income or profit, as something to be maximized. The field has grown substantially since the late 20th century, for example by the development of methods, surveys and indices to measure happiness and related concepts. Its findings have been described as a challenge to the economics profession"