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).