What we measure is what we get: PM

While it has to be given credit for the good it has brought to mankind, Gross Domestic Product has been blindly and wrongly accepted as a measure of societal wellbeing, Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley said in his keynote address on Gross National Happiness at the 80th Anniversary of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Bangkok, Thailand on November 17.

He said the search for a meaningful and fulfilling way of life begins with the call for a more reliable measure of development that goes beyond the singular purpose of monitoring quarterly economic growth variations.

“But what we measure is what we get. So, the bigger question is what should we measure,” Lyonchhhoen said. “This has led to a deep introspection and analysis of what ought to be the purpose of development, indeed, life itself. 

The pursuit of wrong ends which has brought humanity to this perilous state is now the issue and subject of lively international discourse,” he said.

Reflecting on the global currents of change, lyonchhoen said the last century has been one of titanic wars and preparation for a thermonuclear end for the planet. “It was a century driven by production and proliferation of an astounding array of weapons piled high enough to reduce the world to dust a hundred times,”

What human society needs, the prime minister said instead, is the will to build relations that are founded on trust and cooperation to make the world equitable, safe and peaceful.

For many, urban life has come to mean a life of loneliness amid bustling crowds with the social safety net offered by family and neighbours collapsing. “Happiness, after all, is about joyful birth and parenting, meaningful and satisfying labour, aging with contentment amid security; and dying in dignified serenity among family and friends.”

All these problems that haunt today compel the world to open up new vistas of thinking and action, rather urgently, he said.

“Are the goals of material wealth we have unwittingly set for ourselves really worth pursuing? Have we mistaken the means for the end? How did we allow ourselves to be enslaved by market forces and become numbers that matter only as consumers?”

The prime minister said the world has trivialised what makes life worth living by keeping happiness, our indisputable, universal and innermost desire, away from public discourse, policy and politics.

Dissatisfied with the conventional developmental models, GNH was conceived by the former King, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, as the development framework with a clear purpose - the collective happiness of the Bhutanese people, lyonchhoen explained.

The prime minister also acknowledged the similarities in the essence of the philosophy of Sufficiency Economy of His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Bhutan’s GNH. “It is also an interesting coincidence that, moved by the same concerns, our two kings conceived their separate but similar ideas within the same period, that is in the early 1970s.”

The biggest challenge however, is to redefine and promote wealth and prosperity in ways that these become the objects and measure of true human advancement, lyonchheon said.

“We need to understand wealth as not only material but also as comprising the intangible kind that strengthen identity, security and relationships; cause contentment and generally contribute to the flourishing of all life forms with which our own survival is profoundly interconnected.”