| |
|
Measuring instruments
GDP measures everything except what makes life worth living according to Robert Kennedy. But for decades the measurement of all the wealth produced by all economic activity, known as GDP, gross national product, was the only yardstick for measuring the standard of living in a particular place.
However much one has tried to refine it over time, the index remains only a very general approximation, in as much as it does not take into account a series of factors that are not economically quantifiable but crucial for quality of life. This includes a health service, education, good governance, environmental protection, safeguarding cultural and religious values, the elimination of poverty, etc.
Retaining the framework but correcting the defects of the theoretical model, another index, the Human Development Index (HDI), was created in the 1990s, and used by the United Nations to try to avoid the trap of measuring wealth alone. In this case, individual wealth is complemented by other values like life expectancy, education opportunities, etc, which influence social well-being. In the annual report it is always the western countries with high incomes and an advanced social system like Norway, Canada, Australia and Switzerland who are at the top of the list. Although it is more credible, the human development index is still a long way from measuring the sentiment of existential satisfaction.
Around the same time another economic indicator emerged: the Genuine Progress Index, GPI, which indicates where real progress has taken place. One is able to measure this by distinguishing positive expenditure, which benefits the general well-being, from negative expenditure (on things like the cost of crime, pollution or road accidents), as opposed to measuring GDP in which all costs are included in the same way.
Another alternative economic index is Gross National Happiness, GNH. Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the sovereign of Bhutan coined the term and opened a study center located in the capital Thimphu especially to create the conditions to measure it and apply it in national planning. Even though the idea of a state that grants happiness to its citizens sounds vaguely chilling, the moral objective is one of relief: to impede the emerging development that invests in the tiny Kingdom on the roof of the world from betraying its identity based on the spiritual values of Buddhism. The first step, a comprehensive survey to establish whether the population of Bhutan is happier today than nineteen years ago.
(16/06/2006)
print
|
|
|
|
|
