Thanks to ORIZZONTI GEOPOLITICI blog di Luciano Bonazzi Resistenza 3.0 for the article.
Bhutan, small Asian country nestled in the mountains, has established a new evaluation model of wealth, the GNH: Gross National Happiness. This index is based on four pillars: sustainable economy, promotion of culture, good governance and environmental quality.
Today, the “Bhutan National Bank” withdrawing from the treasury of the Kingdom, is changing the lives of the country by financing profound changes in agriculture (eg target: 100% organic by 2020), a national education model where students are prepared to become the future “ambassadors of change and natural resource managers.”
The reforms foresee free health care, high-level tourism, a business independent from the Organisation for World Trade.
The 4th ruler of the Wangchuck dynasty invented the “GNH formula” in 1970. After visiting other countries, Jigme Singye Wangchuck realized that wealth or economic development don’t bring joy to people. For him, development must be done otherwise. Therefore he gave as a priority a development model that put in first place the happiness of his citizens.
In other words, the goal of true joy is considered a priority. Joy is something we all seek, and we want, the pursuit of happiness knows no distinction of culture or ethnicity, but how to find it? The answer was found by the Centre for Bhutan Studies which discovered that happiness is an individual experience, which can be generated and lived collectively.
“A rich country can be an unhappy country”
Earthquakes, diseases, drugs sale, for example, generate money then increase the GDP of a country, unlike, prevention campaigns cost money then decrease the GDP. These are just examples but we see that a desperate country can be a country that brings a lot of money (to certain social categories, of course). The traditional GDP unit, ignores that also disasters and sufferings can be monetized.
Here then the NGH, although it seems a utopian model, expresses in a clearer way the general condition of the population.
So the NGH may seem a utopian model, yet, in 1990 the United Nations established the HDI (Human Development Index), in fact a compromise to assess the level of human development (“non-monetizable wellness”) of countries. In the West we should evaluate the Gross National Happiness upon the consumption of anti-depressive drugs among the population: it would be an interesting data!
More to read: Bhutan (tag)