Again, I've really enjoyed reading everyone's blogs due to the variety of different angles at which everyone approaches the question. It's certainly helping me to develop a more critical and interdisciplinary stance to SC issues. Onto the question at hand...
Thoroughly enjoyed Kevin's Nepal example, and can support it with my own experience of South America this year. It did not surprise me when I read on the happyplanetindex.org site that South America (and "middle income" countries in general) has the highest HPI score! As a continent, developmentally, I suppose it is at a similar level to 1970s US and europe (the era that our GNH peaked). It has the basic welfare infrastructures that support a decent life expectancy, yet has not got to the "growth for growth's sake" stage that we are at. I felt a much stronger sense of community and cultural integrity in South America that instantly conveys an infectious level of happiness that, to me, has long disappeared in England. (Furthermore, I was discussing the issue with my flatmate, who told me of her time teaching in Tanzania - "the people were by far the happiest I have ever met, even though they have absolutely NOTHING!") .... Arguing along these lines, I would tend to favour GNH over GDP. I do, however, have a couple of points regarding this.
Firstly, in last week's seminar I think we missed an important determinant of happiness: expectations. Happiness is surely determined, to a large extent, by the expectations of an individual e.g. someone living on the poverty line and fighting for survival may feel incredibly happy to just exist one more day. One could possibly argue then, that one of the major limitations of GDP is that it fosters "taken for granted-ness" - the wealthier we become, the more we expect and the more facets of living that we take for granted. Perhaps this can explain why GDP beyond a certain point does not contribute to GNH; our expectations are now so high that it takes something big to make us happy.
Secondly, I cannot ignore my nagging thoughts that South America's happiness is, to an extent, a product of the more developed nations' GDP obsession. By this, I argue that if it weren't for the most advanced countries striving for growth and more growth, certain knowledges and technologies would not have been developed that have enabled less developed countries to achieve the essential welfare infrastructure for demographic transition. Certain medical technologies, for example, would probably not exist/would not be affordable had we relied upon GNH since time began. This ties in with what Dave said in his blog - that GDP is crucial to a certain level (the 1970s level) in order to establish a decent welfare system that allows individuals to (hopefully) escape the trials of mere survival.
Building on these arguments, I would like to propose that GDP beyond a certain level erodes GNH. I remember when I was a child... every evening after school I would head to the playing field nextdoor to my house, where a large number of kids would congregate for games of football or general mischief. 12 years on, there are never any kids playing on the field nextdoor - they are too busy on their playstations, Xboxes and laptops:
Increased GDP = More people who can afford PS3 = less people socialising = decreased GNH
or written another way:
Increased GDP = more advanced technologies = implementation of blogs as part of uni teaching = me writing this blog whilst my flatmates drink and party = decreased HPI
joking...
A final bit on happiness:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16194-happiness-spreads-like-the-plague.html
I don't know about anyone else, but I felt incredibly happy and uplifted during and after last week's seminar - sharing happy experiences really did make me feel good! In conclusion, if something good happens to you, tell everyone and we will all achieve increased HPIs.
Don't brag though.
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Ben,
ReplyDeleteThis is all very interesting. It's very hard to measure happiness and I worry about politicians like Sarkozy attempting to hijack this development. He campaigned on a platform to get rid of the 35 hour week in France which arguably did more than most policies to improve happiness.
Studies I looked at - mainly Layard (I think) - suggested happiness is at its highest when your peer group is broad and has similiar levels of income. This might explain Tanzania. Most people there are poor - virtually everyone is poor - so people feel included. The same is for Japan and Scandinavian countries. In the UK and US where there are wide disparities in wealth living cheek by jowl there is a greater sense of exclusion leading to unhappiness.
The happiness index, I think, is too fluffy and distracts from the issue of equity.
After looking through your blog posts to date, I have to say that I appreciate your sense of humor (increased HPI). This is a great way to look at a lot of these issues, because this whole business of unsustainable consumption causing civilization to collapse can be quite terrifying (decreased HPI).
ReplyDeleteMore specifically, I was struck by what you said about developed countries essentially leading the way for lesser developed countries by providing technologies that would not have otherwise existed. Additionally, it reminded me of a question that was posed (although at the wrong time) by someone in class regarding product sharing as a means of reducing consumption. That is, if everyone in the UK starts sharing tools (e.g. hammers) fewer tools will be demanded. Initially this is great, because now we are consuming less! However, this now puts the tool makers (often in developing countries) out of work. I remember the comment was most curious to me at the time, because the person asking the question seemed to be implying that it was the responsibility of those in the developed countries to demand goods (in this case tools) in order to provide jobs to people in undeveloped countries, and he seemed to simultaneously be implying that it was the right of the people in the undeveloped countries to produce such goods whether there was a demand of them or not.
This point of view had never occured to me before in this context, since it is normally presented as people in undeveloped countries being forced out of comfortable lifestyles in exchange for miserable factory jobs. I wonder to what extent this is a conscious decision.
->Also, if whoever asked the question, could explain it that would be helpful.