GDP or GNH? What should governments be striving for, and how?

GDP as a measure of a nations wellbeing is too simplistic a metric. I’m not an economist so I may be missing the point but, as I understand it, GDP as a measure of wellbeing is based on the basic assumption that economic production produces wealth and that makes everyone happy.
But how does GDP indicate equality (access to the things that make a society ’healthy’ such as health, education, and provide a sense of belonging that, as social animals we need) both within a nation and between nations?

A further problem: if production demands consumption and this is underpinned by the constant demand for growth. So what happens when growth stalls? Is society less ‘happy’? Or is this because we have become, as Jackson defines us, rampant, novelty seeking individualists incapable of deriving joy or satisfaction from anything other than purchasing the latest distraction in order to drive the creative destructive cycle that underpins the necessary growth to keep GDP (and our happiness) going in a symbiotic dysfunctional and, ultimately, destructive marriage?

For me, GDP does not work if what a government seeks to address is fairness (equal distribution and access to a basic level of wealth, health and education etc) and well being within its society (or how it compares with other nations). But then again is GNH is the solution?

NEFs Happy Planet Index is one suggested alternative. In the interests of research I found by my happy planet score to be 96.7 (i repeated the test on a number of occasions and in a number of different moods and it didn’t deviate too much from this).

I don’t doubt that well being is hugely dependent upon our sense of belonging, of being involved and loved (it’s inescapably what we are - a social animal). However, it was interesting to see the examples put forward during the workshop, the majority of activities or things that made us happy were underpinned by our wealth (including very low budget travelling - to be able to do something you have to be able to conceive that it is possible in the first place and to be honest if you have had no education or are on a subsistence income/lifestyle or are confined by your culture you will not be going travelling, the exceptions proving the rule). And our thinking was on a micro level. So how does this translate to a macro level which brings us neatly to the question what should governments be striving for and how?

What I am convinced of is that business as usual is no longer an option. Nor is the ‘doing the same but greener’ or decoupling. There is a huge body of literature out there that describes the rebound effect in many different areas (energy, transport etc). Efficiency savings will always lead to increased consumption. So, perhaps if a certain level of wealth is needed, but growth is no longer desirable, perhaps what a government needs is a wholistic metric that takes in to consideration the distribution of and access to wealth (a new GDP), health (both physical and mental - the social context of GNH), education etc.

Maybe we took a wrong turn in the post war years. Perhaps we should have passed up on the American model (morework(hours)moremoneymorestuffmoreworkmoremoneymorestuff) and maybe taken the dividend as the alternative route (lessworkhoursmoretimewiththekids/sauna/dogswhatever).

Upgrade me

I caught this programme (Upgrade Me) on BBC 4.

"Poet and gadget lover Simon Armitage explores people's obsession with upgrading to the latest technological gadgetry. Upgrade culture drives millions to purchase the latest phones, flatscreen TVs, laptops and MP3 players. But is it design, functionality, fashion or friends that makes people covet the upgrade, and how far does the choice of gadgets define identity? Simon journeys across Britain and to South Korea in search of answers. "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n1hwj/Upgrade_Me/

Does business have a duty to promote sustainable consumption?

No, and then again perhaps maybe.

Why would I, a diehard liberal tree hugging eco-vegetarian, say that business does not have a duty to promote sustainable consumption?

Thats promote, and not produce sustainably.

Business, (keeping strictly to capitalist economies) is formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners (and, arguably, its employees and society as a whole) and to grow the business to generate more wealth and so on. It does this by providing goods and services to consumers.

Michealis puts an interesting Darwinian spin on it by pointing out that the rules of business are reinforced by the survival of the fittest companies and the failures of the unfit. So, rather like money itself, business has no morality no soul or ethical responsibilities other than the generation of wealth through the production of things that can be consumed. If a business cannot do this it will become extinct.

But business does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within a society, and, as pointed out in the Story of Stuff, there are consumers who demand products and services and there are the democratically elected representatives of these consumers. It is the role of government to place society’s morality upon business and to institute laws and regulations accordingly to shape and influence how business goes about its business.

So business will not promote sustainable consumption unless it makes sense and its survival depends upon it, i.e. Until consumers demand it and governments reflect this in the laws and regulations it institutes.

But there is a problem with this, again raised by both Leonard and the glorious Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations(1776):
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.

Sometimes governments forget who they represent, and that’s when, socially, things can get interesting. But thats a different topic.

Why this course?

What do i hope to get out of the module

What, apart from the cold hard 2.5 credits towards the 30 credits of PPD I need?

I've been interested in these issues for what seems my whole life. Not realising that the things I was interested in, how you can build a home from tyres and straw and dirt, how you can generate your own power from an old cycle and avoid power companies, how to grow your own food and avoid supermarkets , knittting, refashioning second hand clothes, brewing your own booze, bartering skills, even picking blackberries, the small scale, the domestic, the tiny subversive (with a small s) acts of 'socking it to the man' and avoiding participating in economic activity were what is now called a sustainable lifestyle. And not, as mother was convinced, just being feckless and workshy. Who knew?

Well on the face of it you'd think my time was now. Sustainability is the buzz word. The words I hear are echoing the call for us to stop being cowboys, ever onwards on to the open horizon in a world of no limits, and to become spacemen, aware that we are living in a limited world of closed horizons. (if you aren't familiar with K.E. Bouldings seminal essay 'The economics of the coming spaceship earth' now would be a good time. And I will point out that it was written in 1966).

But...

is it really true? Can it really be true? I hear the words, I see the corporate brochures and marketing statements, and I read the policies and I try to get excited.

But....

I get an uneasey feeling that this is all just a bright shiny superficial veneer, as easily lost in the scramble for maintaining the economic status quo like varnish under acid. Or is it really beginning to become so deeply embedded that to do other wise and reverse the trend is not an option?

Are the lotus eaters really ready to go cold turkey?

So, what I want to get from this course, apart from those darned credits, is to examine whether things are, can and will change.

There, and I only used the S word twice and avoided the C word completely.