The world economy, to many, has been unequal when it comes to certain areas and how it manages issues, but for quite a while, a lot of light hasn’t been shed on how this inequality persists in the struggle between attaining economic growth while still striving for ecological buoyancy. Though the truth about it has been quite obvious, loyalty to growth supersedes the consideration of ecological buoyancy, not just at high-level offices but also for many people who don’t consider their environment in their dealings.
The current economic system built around capital produces immediate economic benefits, and often these benefits go back into the system to protect another cycle of abusive exploration and its benefactors. Some try to call it development because it seemingly increases the quality of life for some, but it’s a development that has been misconstrued owing to the measurements that it is hinged upon.
The imbalanced parameters for economic development in which the world is guided, have made a mockery of the growth and development we aspire to achieve. GDP, a term that gives an incomplete representation of development, is only a reflection of how big the purse is and not how impactful it is.
Let’s look at the practices that increase GDP figures. The aim of this is to highlight the current measurement for growth that is benchmarked on the dysfunctional GDP.
| Buying single-use products | Adds to GDP |
| Felling Trees | Adds to GDP |
| Overexploitation of resources | Adds to GDP |
| Urban sprawling | Adds to GDP |
| Using fossilized energy | Adds to GDP |
All of the practices listed above are all ways nations of the world grow their economy and seem developed. However, what is no longer news is that these practices are obsolete and wrong ways of achieving sustainable development. Perhaps more light needs to be shown on the measurement of development that deems those listed practices right for development. And since all of these are executed in pursuit of growth, it begs the question of whether we can prosper without growth or should we pursue growth and suffer the consequences in the undoubted interest of millions of people whom it has given sources of livelihood.
Gross National Happiness (GNH)
Todaro and Smith (2009) define development as the process of improving the quality of all human lives, which focuses on three important aspects: raising people’s living standards; creating conditions conducive to the growth of people’s self-esteem; and increasing people’s freedom, which is truly what sustainable development is all about. Unfortunately, economic growth, measured popularly via GDP, is a complementary indicator to a non-sustainable development that is inefficient and incomplete. However, more robust measurement of GDP would not be fixated on physical capital but also on human and natural capital.
This leads us to a new term known as “Gross National Happiness” (GNH), which is a term formed to give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing; something that the GDP misses. As a more sustainable measurement for development, GNH implements nine parameters for measurement, which are:
- Psychological well-being
- Standard of living
- Good governance
- Health
- Education
- Community vitality
- Cultural diversity and resilience
- Balanced time use
- Ecological diversity
A good explanation of this “not-so-new” idea is given here, so without going further it is also important to say that to some these targets may seem a bit utopic as some of the parameters focus on personal areas that may be difficult to reach or even measure. Well, however way it is judged, it will be a significant step from a development measurement that is framed around a few eating and the larger percentage lifting and bearing the stress of it.