Read the 1st two paragraphs on the origin of GNH at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness
and watch a short 8’38’’ video on "Happiness in Bhutan" at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4782636.stm
Other useful references:
1)http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/livingstandards/measuring_sol.htm
2)http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/dc/copper/theory/th11.htm
3) http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/dc/farming/theory/th3.htm
You should then be able to engage your friends and respond to the following question:
1) Discuss whether Gross National Happiness is a good measure of living standards.
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Gross National Happiness is not a good measure of living standards because this measure is very subjective.
ReplyDeleteTake for example, people in less developed countries such as Africa are happy because they are void of all the burdens and daily troubles that people in developed countries have (eg problems at work/school). But their living standards are a far cry from countries such as Singapore or USA.
Therefore it is not a good measure.
i agree with what jia min says as well. Gross National Happiness is not an accurate measure of living standards because happiness is something that cannot be defined in only a certain way. Being happy does not necessarily mean that living standards are good, it could mean only that people are content and satisfied with what they have, though, as the example about africa that jia min mentioned, what is percieved to be satifactory by some people, may well be below what people in other countries deem as suitable living standards.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, the GNH is subjective and cannot accurately define a country's well-being and be used for comparison among countries. Nevertheless, GNH does cover areas that the GDP doesnt cover, inclusive of Environmental Wellbeing and Political Wellbeing. Perhaps GNH will work better if some aspects of it are used together with the GDP, giving us a more complete picture of living standards aside from just the economy point of view.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jiamin as well. The definition and the measure of happiness is subjective to each person. Individuals have different unique needs and wants and as mentioned, under different situations and environments (eg: living standards), level of satisfaction varies. Hence, GDP would be a better measure though it does not cover the environmental wellbeing and political wellbeing that GNH does.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments above
ReplyDeleteIn developed countries, people generally enjoy high standards of living. However,people in these developed countries may have to cope with the stress of their occupations. Hence, having a high standard of living does not necessarily mean people will be happy.
Conversely, in less developed countries like Africa, people have low standards of living but they are free of burdens and stress. Hence, having a low standard of living does not mean people will not be happy
Therefore, as mentioned above by skammers and nic, GDP would be a better measure for a more complete assessment of living standards
In continuation of the comment made by my group (skammers), a possible way may be that we could confer a price to happiness, as in the case of CBA. This way, maybe we'd be able to make comparisons in a slightly more accurate way?
ReplyDeletei think it's very hard to compare GNH between countries because (as mentioned by others) GNH is very subjective. The people in a less developed country may not be aware of the living standards in other more developed countries. Example, the luxuries they own and a more comfortable life, (eg. portable water, other forms of entertainment). Hence they may just be content with their own simple life.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it must also be noted that with more luxuries, it comes with more stress as it is human's nature to be greedy and wanting more. Hence, this may cause people in developed countries to be more stressed and hence lowering quality of life.
I feel that GNH is not a feasible and accurate measurement of standard of living in a big country. For a really small country, it is easier to obtain survey results from the small population.
ReplyDeleteIn a big country:
Infant mortality rates is one element of GNH because the loss of a premature child creates sorrow. However, for different people, the quantity of sorrow (or negative happiness) differs. If we assume that the loss of a child gives the same negative happiness to people (since it is not possible to survey all citizens in a big country), then it is no different from just measuring infant motality rate alone. Hence GNH does not measure happiness accurately and thus SOL is wrongly determined.
It is very difficult to tie in GNH with SOL. Especially when the survey typically asks you about whether you are happy in life, it depends on the events that have happened to the individual and how the individual has taken it. It has almost close to nothing about your SOL. However, if the survey is altered in such a way that asks whether you are happy with how you are living, the kind of things that you have at your disposal, etc, it would perhaps be a more accurate measurement of SOL if you really want to measure it in terms of happiness.
ReplyDeleteI wrote as Skammers!
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ.
ReplyDeleteYes, the effectiveness of GNH as a measure of SOL may be questionable. However, the purpose of measuring standards of living of different countries is merely for ranking the satisfaction of people, which is ultimately what human beings seek to have in life. It is true that happiness is intangible, but isn't the definition of 'living conditions' subjective to a certain extent? It need not only include the physical conditions.
With GNH, the general public can voice out their views as to whether they are living their lives with satisfaction, such as whether they are emotionally or psychologically satisfied, with or without materialistic satisfaction. GDP and GNP do not include such aspects which should be taken into consideration as they make a big part of 'living conditions'.
I agree with jiamin as well. The Gross National Happiness (GNH) index is not a good measure of the standard of living (SOL) of a country. This is because happiness is very subjective and varies from person to person. Someone's perception of happiness may be very different from another's perception. Also, nic said that happiness is hard to define and people have different levels of satisfaction, which is totally agree with. Therefore, this makes GNH an inaccurate measure. At the same time, it is difficult to quantify happiness. And using a survey with prepared responses means that the survey is not specific and does not account for any anomalies.
ReplyDeleteStanley said....
ReplyDeleteI think gross national happiness is not a good measure of living standard. First of all i think its quite hard to measure the happiness of everyone in the country. some people would not tell the truth while others will not even bother to entertain the survey. Hence the results gathered are most probably inaccurate and cannot be a good measure of living standards. Also there are other more accurate way of measuring living standard like the real GDP per capita which shows how much the people earn. when people have higher income they would have more purchasing power and hence they would buy more goods which would increase the living standards of the people. Hence the higher the GDP per capita means a higher living standards
GNH may not be as good to measure SOL as happiness is subjective and people's definitions of happiness are different. Some may need material wealth to be happy, others don't need it.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking a better indicator would be to combine a number of good indicators together to form a better gauge of SOL in a country.
This is where the Human Development Index (HDI) comes in? :D
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic used as an index to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate developed (high development), developing (middle development), and underdeveloped (low development) countries.
The HDI combines three dimensions:
Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity
Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
Standard of living, as measured by the natural logarithm of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity.
By combining good indicators, it might be more accurate.
I do not agree that Gross National Happiness(GNH) is a good way of measuring the standard of living.Like everyone has mentioned,happiness is subjective,it means different things to different people.A poor man in Africa could be happy,despite living in terrible conditions such as lack of food,water,housing etc. simply because he is alive.On the other hand,a rich man in the US could be happy because he has bought a new car.In both cases,the standards of living are complete opposites of each other,the one in Africa being low and the one in the US being high.However,both men are happy and if GNH were to be used as an indicator of standard of living,then both countries would appear to have the same living standards when in reality,this is not true.So GNH is thus not a reliable way of measuring living standards.Other indicators such as GDP should be used instead as these would reflect the true living standards of a country.
ReplyDeleteHappiness can be measured in so many ways depending on the perspective of one. For example, happiness may mean having a lot of wealth in America yet it may also mean simply being with one's family in developing countries like India. Therefore, if one were to look at one's own country and what are its happiness indicators. Thus,GNH would be an effective measure of standard of living.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, a country consists of many people with China having a widening income gap. That does not mean that everyone is happy. Therefore, with the many ways to measure GNH if looked from an individual's perspective, it is not a good measure of SOL
i believe the main challenge that faces the concept of GNH is really the practicality issue of whether spiritual and material development can actually complement each other, which the question has mentioned. To what extent do economists take into account the weight of ethical values when it comes to certain projects? Even though trees are destroyed and global warming is becoming a major ominous threat, projects involving the building of certain infrastructures are persistently given the green signal. I feel it's just a theory that gives the hope that perhaps the power of money can be matched by moral issues in terms of giving people satisfaction and overall happiness. There are many flaws in people's ideologies and everyday actions that make this merely a theory. A psychopath could be delighted about killing a person and yet his so called 'quality of life' is living in a prison cell. And thats what GNH is to me, just another theory that generations and generations of our society will discuss and study, never realising the complexities of human emotions that makes it hard to define what success and happiness really is to each and everyone of us.
ReplyDeleteesabelle said .....
ReplyDeletei agree with the general support that GNH cannot be defined by standard of living or mere indicators as it is rather the subjective perspective of one and each has his or her own standards to the definition of happiness.i feel manoj has provided a depeper insight and yes i absolutely agree. how to draw the limits when spiritual and material needs are in conflict.i feel that rather using all these general indicators,specific research and profiling must be done to pin point each age group and from there,determining a quantifiable factor to pass judgement on.For example,when people feel happy,they release a certain sort of hormone?like scientific evidence to back up rather than sol which is vague.perhaps with more concrete evidence other indicators,which are just theories will hold more truth then.
As what jiamin has mentioned which is in line with the Wikipedia article, GNH is easier to state than to measure with "mathematical precision". Having said that, we can give every citizen in every country a task of expressing their state of happiness on a scale of 1-10 (this is only hypothetically speaking; costs of conducting surveys etc. have to be taken into account since we're talking economics here. This is also a very general question which does not address more specific areas). A number will hence be present for compilation and comparison of results among countries. However, the measure of happiness is subjective. An exaggerated person may pull the bar to a 9 whereas a more mild-mannered person may only rate his/her happiness as 6 despite living in very similar standards.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, some things that are assumed to make people happy may turn out to be otherwise for some people. For instance, healthcare is thought to be a factor that improves living standards the level of happiness, yet a person who has caught a flu may not wish to visit a doctor because s/he feels that the money spent on consultation and medicine can be better utilised on other goods/services and greater enjoyment is derived from consuming them than medical service.
Therefore, GNH is not a good measure of living standards, but it may be better than having no indicator/measure of happiness at all because with GNH, at least an attempt in considering the quality of life while implementing policies would be made.