GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS

This preposterously weird term, particularly intensified in its bizarre effect by the double meaning of gross, is, nevertheless, a legitimate economic term under the aegis of the so-called economics of happiness, which is basically a concerted effort, conducted under different names, to quantify the concept of happiness within the socio-economic sphere.

Quantification of collective happiness over collective misery is something to be logically expected from the utilitarian mantra, courtesy of Jeremy Bentham and others. Whichever amount (happiness versus misery) in the analyzed action’s inequation is greater wins either the utilitarian applause or censure. Therefore, there is nothing revolutionary in the modern concept of Gross National Happiness itself, and the only two kinds of difference which can be found among the myriads of competing suggestions are how to name the term, and what parameters are to be considered in the computation.

The following is an abstract from Wikipedia’s page on one of such projects, predictably titled most properly as Gross National Happiness. Although this long passage is demonstrably unoriginal on my part, I am quite happy to have found this curious needle in the haystack of the Internet and brought it to my reader for his or her personal edification.---

The concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) was developed in an attempt to define an indicator which measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a chief economic indicator, GDP has numerous flaws, long known to economists. GDP measures the amount of commerce in a country, but counts remedial and defensive expenditures (such as the costs of security, police, pollution clean-up, etc.) as positive contributions to commerce. A better measure of economic wellbeing would deduct such costs, and add in other non-market benefits (such as volunteer work, unpaid domestic work, and various unpriced ecosystem services) in arriving at an indicator of wellbeing. As economic development on the planet approaches or surpasses the limits of ecosystems to provide resources and absorb human effluents, calling into question the ability of the planet to continue to support civilization, many people have called for getting Beyond GDP (the title of a recent EU conference), in order to measure progress not as the mere increase in commercial transactions, nor as an increase in specifically economic wellbeing, but as an increase in general wellbeing, as the people themselves subjectively report it. GNH is a strong contributor to this movement to discard measurements of commercial transactions as a key indicator and to instead directly assess changes in the social and psychological wellbeing of the populations.

The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization. He used the phrase to signal his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. At first offered as a casual remark, the concept was taken seriously, as the Centre for Bhutan Studies developed a sophisticated survey instrument to measure the population’s general level of wellbeing.

…Like many psychological and social indicators, GNH is easier to state than to define with mathematical precision. Nonetheless, it serves as a unifying vision for Bhutan’s five-year planning process and all the derived planning documents, which guide the economic and development plans of the country. Proposed policies in Bhutan must pass a GNH review based on a GNH impact statement that is similar in nature to the Environmental Impact Statement, required for development in the United States.

While conventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH is based on the premise that some forms of economic development are uneconomic, a concept that is advanced by the nascent field of ecological economics. Such development costs more in loss of ecosystem services, and in the imposition of “urban disamenities,” than it produces as a positive contribution to well-being. (The difficulty is, of course, that for many forms of development the gains are taken privately, while the costs the development imposes are born generally and publicly.)

The Bhutanese grounding in Buddhist ideals suggests that beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the national environment, and establishment of good governance. At this level of generality, the concept of GNH is trans-cultural: a nation need not be Buddhist, in order to value sustainable development, cultural integrity, ecosystem conservation, and good governance. Through the collaboration with an international group of scholars and empirical researchers, the Centre for Bhutan Studies elaborated on these four pillars with greater specificity, coming up with eight general contributors to happiness, that is physical, mental and spiritual health; time-balance; social and community vitality; cultural vitality; education; living standards; good governance; and ecological vitality.

Although the GNH framework reflects its Buddhist origins, it is solidly based upon the empirical research literature of happiness, positive psychology and wellbeing.

The article proceeds with a discussion of subsequently elaborated qualitative/quantitative indicators within the general GNH framework.---

There is no exact quantitative definition of GNH, but its contributing elements are subject to quantitative measurement. Low rates of infant mortality, for instance, correlate positively with subjective expressions of wellbeing or happiness within a country. (This makes sense, for, it is no large leap to assume that premature death causes sorrow.) The practice of social science has long been directed toward transforming subjective expression of large numbers of people into meaningful quantitative data; there is little difference between asking people “How confident are you in the economy?” and “How satisfied are you with your job?”

GNH, like the Genuine Progress Indicator, refers to the concept of a quantitative measurement of wellbeing and happiness. The two measures are both motivated by the notion that subjective measures, like wellbeing, are more relevant and important than more objective measures like consumption. It is not measured directly, but only the factors which are believed to lead to it.

A second-generation GNH concept treating happiness as a socioeconomic development metric, proposed in 2006, measures socioeconomic development by tracking 7 development areas including the nation’s mental and emotional health. GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures:

1 Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio, and income distribution.

2 Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of the environmental metrics such as pollution, noise, and traffic.

3 Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illness.

4 Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients.

5 Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics, to include jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits.

6 Social Wellness: Indicated likewise via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates.

7 Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

The above seven metrics were incorporated into the first Global GNH Survey.

The reader may ask why so much attention has been given to this particular subject, while a great variety of other economic activities of this nature have been ignored? It is no big secret that I am not a big fan of all sorts of socio-economic gimmicks such as direct surveys and their statistical measurements, as all these are terribly subjective and predominantly manipulative, allowing the survey conductor to shape their questions as they please, and thus condition the answers to suit their particular agendas and to come up with expected results, thus turning an overwhelming majority of such surveys into shameless con games.

But this particular item is both a curiosity in itself (being allegedly rooted in the Buddhist tradition and thus not a new-age fluke, but probably a sincere undertaking carrying some traces of religious morality) and one certainly deserving to make an example of. (If we must talk about such things at all, why don’t we pick this one, of the lot?)