Per Capita Happiness
Written on August 10th, 2009 by namrataHow are you feeling at this very moment? Happy, Sad, Stressed……Our emotions reflect who we are and our circumstances at that point in time. Can emotions actually be measured? Is the talk of a Happy Planet Index ridiculous?
This is what I think…
1. If GDP was the best measure of success then climate change would not have happened. Our measures would have shown that economic growth is impacting the world around us and will have a long term negative impact on the planet and therefore our very existence.
2. Conventional western ideas of development and progress to a large extent are based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This view, assumes that human beings are driven by a limitless craving for material possessions. However, there is a new way of looking at human needs. According to Manfred Max-Neef a Chilean economist and environmentalist, fundamental human needs are: subsistence protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation, creation, identity and freedom. According to him anyone who cannot satisfy these needs is poor. Income, according to this methodology is not a criteria for Poverty.
If decision-makers operated according to his assumptions rather than those of most economists, then the choices they made would change radically.
Can GDP factor in the new concepts of Human Needs and Sustainability? Perhaps not.
We need a new way of thinking. An approach that does not assume that Happiness is Directly correlated to Economics and that Air, Water and the Earth are neither abundant nor free.
Perhaps measuring Happiness is a better way of making a better world! (Happy Planet Index)
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