Happiness as the Greatest Human Wealth
FRANK BRACHO
“From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt”
-Paramahansa Yogananda
Definition of Happiness
Happiness has been defined as “a state of well-being and
contentment”. The “well-being” component would carry a more external
dimension whereas the “contentment” component a more internal one. The
defining characteristic of happiness being the latter though: a feeling of
inner joy of satisfaction.
Another way to put it would be that “well-being” would address
grosser and less profound aspects of our nature as living beings whereas
“contentment” would address subtler and more profound aspects.
Yet both dimensions refer to basic aspects of our nature as human
sentient beings since we are flesh and spirit, body and soul; in one single
unit where the state of one dimension is dependent upon the other. In fact,
if the body is “the temple of the Spirit”, the Spirit is “the high energy of the
temple”.
Happiness has been ultimately the most cherished goal of any
conscious human being in any endeavor to better his or her condition. In the
founding of the republics of the Americas leaders such as Simon Bolívar and
Thomas Jefferson spoke about the importance of happiness in the purpose
of the new nations. Bolivar said “The best political system is the one that
assures the greatest sum of social happiness” and Jefferson placed the
pursuit of happiness next to life and liberty as one of the three fundamental
pillars enshrined in the American Constitution. Of course, much earlier
predecessors, philosophers and sages have referred to the notion of
happiness as the defining yardstick of human realization. Terms such as
“ananda”, “samadhi”, “nirvana”, “maripa”, “oriwaka”, in diverse spiritual
and native traditions have been used to refer to the ultimate bliss brought
about by Enlightenment as “the greatest state of happiness”.
Concerning Primarily The Well-Being Dimension
Well-being, Health and the GDP
But how can we further pin down the practical meaning of happiness ?
Back to the “well-being” component, this may be related to the concept of
health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines “health” as “a state
of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity”. The latter tem, “infirmity”, comes from the
The Atlantic Monthly
in October 1995, concluded that: “By the curious
standard of the GDP, the nation´s economic hero is a terminal cancer patient
who is going through a costly divorce.. ” ( ! ) None of the former examples,
of course, are very conducive to happiness.
Of course, this kind of health or life-careless approach of the whole
GNP notion would be openly at odds with one of the most important tenets
of all major spiritual traditions, namely the one of Not Causing Harm (in
deed, word or thought): the “Primum non nocere” of Hipocrates, “Ama
guaña” of the Incas, “Ahimsa” of Hinduism and Buddhism-and in
particular the “Right livelihood” tenet of this (“to be careful to have an
occupation that does not involve destroying life or hurting people”).
Health in its broadest conception is the indispensable doorstep to the
deeper aspects of Happiness. Because only with a pure body and soul will
we be able to see the light, be the light; in other words be wise, and, with it,
attain peace and happiness.
Economic Growth, Development and Sustainability
The GDP notion has been a corollary of other broader economicist
and materialistic concepts such as “national economic growth” or
“development”. Both of these are intent on endless growth (an
unnatural notion since the ideology of growth for growth´s sake is the
ideology of the cancer cell) as well as imitation of supposedly advanced
or already developed countries –namely the industrial countries (a
notion increasingly called into question as the unsustainability of the
ruling industrial model becomes more apparent and glaring). Moreover,
the term “development” was first coined after World War II by
American President Harry Truman, under the influence of promotersadvisers
such as Nelson Rockefeller, who in those days cherished the
idea of a worldwide economic expansion in search of markets and
resources; which may further explain the economic bias of the concept.
No amount of adjectivizing such as adding the term “sustainable” to
“development” will change the picture unless a true paradigm change is
undertaken to address the deep-seated flaws of the present dominant model
of wealth and progress. As S. Cunnighan ironically has commented:
“Sustainability is a great concept, but the world needs restoration first. After
all, who really wants to sustain the mess we live in now?” (Cunnighan,
2003).
In the latter light, the official definition of “sustainable
development”, put forward by the Brundtland Comission, in 1987 lends
itself to some questioning. The Brundtland Commission defined
sustainable development as “being able to meet the needs of today ´s
generation without compromising the ones of future generations”.
Although a relative progress over previous notions, this definition in
our view still falls quite short. Both the biological and spiritual
deterioration of today´s generation itself are of such magnitude that its
own survival may also be compromised. Thus if “sustainable
development” is to be a realistic notion it must be focused also on the
immediate threat to the present generation and the “Here and Now”.
Those who may view with skepticism the prospect of a total human
collapse during the present generation need to be reminded of the fate
met by pre-Columbus America: in one single generation a formerly
thriving population was erased from the map as a result of all the
diseases, destitution and uprooting caused by its abrupt subjection to
European conquest. There is no reason why present-day humanity, so
much immersed worldwide in a growing quagmire of disease,
destruction and environmental contamination and uprooting, may not
meet the same fate; if the same unsustainable and suicidal course
persists. Of course, the self-nullifying of the present generation, no
matter how much material legacy it may leave behind, would
automatically imply the nullifying of the succeeding generations. An
early end of the game. A forewarning of this may be the alarming drop
on men’s sperm count and increase of infertility we’ve been witnessing,
as a result of the present biological and spiritual human deterioration,
which have brought about the so called “empty cradles” phenomenon, a
population drop in most of the industrial world. This “lock up” in the
“demographic wheel”, with serious consequences on the sustainability
of the economic, social and public policies in general.
If the concept of sustainability is to make it into the tools of a true
paradigm change we would suggest rather the following broader and
more relevant definition: “A human productive or creative endeavor is
sustainable when it doesn´t exceed the capacity of assimilation or
regeneration of an ecological-social system. ” The assimilation
dimension would be concerned with what such system can tolerate: for
instance, a “development” that disrupts the social equilibrium, because
it is unjust or oppressive, cannot be sustainable, just as it could not if it
keeps on producing piles of toxic waste which are unmanageable or
non-recyclable (which likewise would be akin to a constipation situation
in the human body, a root-cause of a myriad of diseases). The
regeneration dimension would concern itself with the replenishment
capacity of what consumed: a “development” that disrupts the
regeneration flow or balance of the natural order, when irrationally and
irreparably destroying or contaminating a forest, water sources, the soil,
or the complex interrelationships between these, could hardly be
considered sustainable.
In fact, an interesting measurement of the GDP adjusted to account
for factors such as income inequality and resource use, named Genuine
Progress Indicator (GPI), found that when these kind of factors are
brought to bear the GDP picture in a country like the USA shows a
steady decline since the 1970s – not an increase as the official views
claims (Haggart, 1999).
Returning to the notion of the balance of the Natural Order, how much
more sustainable and happier would human societies be if they adhered
fully to its fundamental laws of functioning! These have been particularly
honored by native cultures of the world (the ones that have lived in close
communion with the Earth). Chiefs Seattle´s internationally renowned
manifesto is an embodiment of these laws. Its passage: “The Earth doesn´t
belong to man but man belongs to the Earth…Man did not weave the web
of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to
himself” is memorable in that regard. But the natural laws in fact have been
honored too in all major religious traditions, because they are another way
to refer to the divine laws.
Among the laws of the Natural Order stand out the following: The Law
of the Unity of Life or “All is one and all is alive” (akin to the law of
emptiness or interdependence of the Buddhist, which gives ground to
compassion as ultimately “enlightened self-interest”), The Law of Cause
and Effect (akin to the law of karma of Buddhist and Hindus), The Law of
Impermanence (particularly highlighted in Buddhism), The Law of
Analogy, The Law of Life Moving in Spiraled Cycles, and The Law of the
Complementarity of Antagonisms. If all human endeavors could be framed
within these laws they would indeed naturally lead to healthy and happy
human communities.
A recent interesting contribution to the furthering of the concept of
sustainability from an ecological viewpoint is the one of “the ecological
footprint” (EFP). This compares renewable natural resource consumption
with nature’s biologically productive capacity. A country’s footprint is “the
total area required to produce the food and fibres that country consumes,
sustain its energy consumption, and give space for its infrastructure”
(WWF, 2002). According to this index, humanity´s ecological footprint is
already exceeding significantly earth´s biological carrying capacity, and a
planetary imitation of the consumption pattterns of a country like the US
would require of three planets earth –which would make such model
inherently unsustainable. The EFP, on the other hand, overlooks two
important factors which, as said early, cannot be separated from the
physical natural domain: the internal social sustainability of humanity itself
(including its possible own collapse before the one of the planet´s) and the
intricate ecological services or inter-flows (like the water, wind and
temperature “cycles”) which go beyond any demarcated physical areas.
Ultimately any true well-being should be inherently “sustainable”,
“social”, “fair”, etc; or otherwise it wouldn´t make much sense.
On the limits of measurement as well as the importance of qualitative
aspects and people´s empowerment.
On the other hand, the ruling GDP and macro-economic account
system is overly-biased towards valuing everything in money terms, and
disregarding what cannot be translated into these. Money has been made an
overpowering end unto itself within the GDP mind-set, rather than a means
to reflect real and sustainable value. The former ultimately stemming from
the “original sin” of capitalism namely being born out of the charging of
interest over loaned money, which made money acquire a value in itself that
earlier lacked. The mighty power “to create money out of nowhere” with
which society has endowed bankers has become self-propelled and
entrenched in vested interests. In fact, as it has been has noted, worldwide:
“almost all the money we use (i. e. except the notes and coins which today
are only 3% of the total) came into existence as a result of a bank agreeing to
make a loan to a customer, at interest. This is why it is called “debtmoney”,…
the true purpose of the Global Monetocracy is that of money
growth in order to maintain the current debt-based money system”
(Madron and Joplin, 2003).
In fact, the most important things in life such as health, love, peace and
happiness, do not lend themselves to being bought or sold, nor depend
fundamentally on money-priced material goods. In spite of this, the
dominant “development” or “well-being” conception has clearly tended to
emphasize the quantitative over the qualitative, the monetary over the non
monetary, income over a decent and fulfilling occupation, competition over
cooperation, and the material over the spiritual.
The blatant disregard of the GDP for social and environmental costing,
the contribution of the “underground economy” (the economy of love,
reciprocity and solidarity), the qualitative aspects of human well-being,
makes it indeed a very limited and flawed expression of the well-being of a
nation or community.
Concerning the bias of the ruling paradigm towards quantitative
measurement, the shortcomings of this to assess something as complex and
qualitative as human well-being cannot be over-emphasized; in order to
avoid distortions or delusions in this endeavor. In fact, interestingly enough,
the sanskrit word “Maya”, referring to “that which causes delusion to
understand reality” also means literally “the measurer” ( ! ).
On the other hand, it may be said on behalf of the GDP that the handful
of economists and statisticians that created it perhaps never had in mind
that the GDP should become the paramount yardstick of human well-being
which powerful economic and political interests later made, nor the
universal projection that the UN blessing imparted to it. In fact its early
technical creators designed it primarily to deal with the specific needs
arising from World war II both for the facing of the war and post-war
reconstruction efforts; in retrospect something achieved with remarkable
success. In the light of this, the American economist Simon Kuznets who,
under the ideas of his British colleague John Maynard Keynes, first brought
about the application of the GDP system in the USA itself, noted later on
with concern the pretense of converting it into a measurement of full human
well-being and devoted the rest of his life to caution against the
shortcomings of the GDP in this regard (Haggart, 1999).
In light of the former, the responsibility for GDP´s outgrowth and
hegemony would more a consequence of the misplaced priorities of
governments, business and societies, unable to uphold more meaningful
human well-being indexes. But in terms of the past or present responsibility
of technicians, to leave it at this, would be too evasive or self-indulgent. In
the face of an accounting system such as the GDP not only having ceased to
be part of the solution but having as well become part of the problem
because of its head-on collision with true well-being and sustainability, in a
world threatened with collapse, statisticians cannot rest indifferent but
should take an ethical stand for truth and life, denouncing the flaws of the
GDP and actively joining the movement towards alternatives. In fact, the
GDP hegemony has also held down technical material resources to foster
alternative accounting systems of well-being (reflected for example on the
utter under-staffing or under-equipping of the public agencies charged with
the monitoring of social, environmental and health indicators).
Now all the above is not to suggest that the powerful economicist
Central Banks or similar institutions that dutifully calculate every year
national GDPs should now be mechanically replaced by some kind of new
social central banks that should come up with some sort of “social GDP”.
The transformation called for requires not only a change in the tools and
methods but on the very premises of the present system.
In this latter regard, two key aspects are the enhancement of quality
and the advancement of people´s empowerment–both addressing two major
shortcomings of the dominant system.
Some International Efforts to Redefine Well-being and Progress
Many initiatives have been proposed internationally to address
concerns such as the formerly stated. In retrospect, a particularly groundbreaking
and pioneering one was the one of the International Meeting on
More Effective Development Indicators, held in Caracas in 1989, with the
attendance of a number of the leading experts on the issue from diverse
corners of the world, a meeting which the author of this presentation was
instrumental in convening in his capacity of Coordinator of the Office of the
South Commission in Venezuela. The findings of the meeting highlighted
some key concerns that would become central to the subsequent agenda for
change. In view of this, we reproduce
in extenso the following summary
about the its conclusions:
"The meeting noted the limitations to the advisability of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) continuing to be the main
reference for measuring development and pointed to formulas for
correcting or improving it in order to obtain a more integral and
effective means of measuring the socioeconomic condition of
peoples. This in turn was complemented by the proposal for
parameters to measure the quality of life in such aspects as
poverty, the biological condition of infancy, health, education,
nutrition, employment and income, pollution and the destruction
of natural resources; and how this measurement could be
harmonized at the international level, as was once the case with
the GDP, so that countries might have a “common language” and
make a better job of channeling the collective effort in favor of
development. In turn this was related to the discussion of whether
the new forms of measurement should be reflected by a composite
(GDP type) index or a broken down index or set of separate
indicators (to avoid the oversimplification of the GDP); opting in
the end for a healthy middle-of –the-road formula which proposes
a list of basic indicators at the international level, leaving open the
option for countries to continue to try more ambitious formulas–
including composites indexes-national circumstances and
information gathering capacity permitting. Likewise, considerable
importance was given to the need for the indicators proposed to
be easily understood by the population and have significance at
the local level and the level of social groups, so as to ensure
authentically participatory and decentralized types of
development” (Office of the South Commission in
Venezuela/TOES Books, 2000).
Two years after the Caracas meeting, in 1990, The United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) launched The Human Development Index
(IDH). In fact, among the attendees of the Caracas meeting there had been a
prominent participation from the in-the-offing HDI initiative. The HDI,
unlike the GDP, concerns itself with the social performance on issues such
as health, education and purchasing power, that is quality of life issues
primarily. Its chief architect, late former Minister of Planning of Pakistan
Mahbub Ul-Haq, used to highlight that “a healthy and long life” should be
the ultimate yardstick of human well-being, a goal kept by the HDI up to
the present time. Its simplifying composite or bundled nature (as the GDP it
basically sums it all up in a single number), has been complemented with
wider “external themes”-focused annual reports. With its annual ranking
and reports as well the long-reach UN institutional clout, the HDI has
challenged the short-sighted GDP ranking and made a significant
international contribution to stimulate a change of vision on the issue of
well-being indexes. On the other hand, just like the GDP, its primarily
simplifying composite-quantitative character has made it prone to miss out
important qualitative dimensions as well as to keep the Index only as
territory of the qualified technicians who can make its complex calculation –
to the detriment of people´s empowerment in both the compilation and
monitoring of their own well-being. One illustrative case is the emblematic
issue of longevity on which we´ll elaborate later.
The targets and indices of The Millennium Plan, adopted by the UN in
2000, have been another effort in the right direction, even though they are
still too much influenced by the monetary income-related notion of poverty
as well as they have not brought about a sufficient mobilizing echo (the
Plan´s chief laudable concern)-particularly at the level of national policies.
The World Bank itself, in spite of all its stakes in the dominant system,
has put forward the need to widen the concept of capital with a view to
include: “natural capital” (natural resources), “construction capital”
(infrastructure), “human capital” (quality of life), and “social capital”
(family, community, solidarity, etc), in order to achieve “a more holistic
approach to development”. Nevertheless the former proposal still keep
certain bias to continue to consider human and other living beings, as well
as the natural environment as “inputs” or means for the productive process,
rather than end in themselves to which, on the contrary, the productive
process should be subservient. Of course the seeming change of stand in the
WB position is an acknowledgement of the increasing pressure of world
public opinion to check the contemporary versions of the blind economicist
paradigm: “neoliberalism” and “globalization. These were given impetus by
the so-called “Washington Consensus” and have been promoted by
international organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank itself and the World Trade Organization. The popular challenge has
been led from the grass-root of peoples and civil societies, but has also
counted on thinkers coming from the system itself like Joseph Stiglitz, a
Nobel Prize in Economics and former Chief Economist of the World Bank.
Stiglitz has denounced the insensitivity and blindness of the “economic
adjustment programs” or “economicist reforms” of recent times, and in
particular its devastating effects on populations, the environment and the
dismantling of national economies, citing in particular the telling example of
the ill-fated experience of Latin America in that regard. Interestingly
enough, in his analysis on the reach of the adverse effects of the reforms in
the Latin American region Stiglitz has noted on the on other hand that: “..
the subsistence farmers isolated from the market economy were among the
less affected by these”, an evidence that would lend further weight to the
merits of self-reliant communities, even if on austere standards, to guard
against the perilously misguided policies of the international economy.
It is apparent that there could be and must be another type of free
market: one with ethics, social and environmental responsibility, as well as
on a more human scale to facilitate accountability. Just as there could be and
must be another type of globalization: the globalization of responsibility and
solidarity. Another world is possible-as the motto of the contesting World
Social Forum has proclaimed !
More recently, in October 2003, the ICONS meeting in Curitiba, Brazil,
was another encouraging initiative. ICONS was convened by an alliance of
Brazilian civic society organizations and businesses, with the concurrence of
sectors of the new Brazilian government and the support-inspiration of
international partners such as noted alternative indices pioneer Hazel
Henderson (Henderson, 2003). The meeting drew an attendance of about
700 hundred participants, in order to boost in particular the cause of
alternative people´s-based well-being indicators in Brazil and, on a broader
plane, to encourage further international efforts in this regard.
Of course Brazil is just one of a number of countries world-wide where
leading initiatives have or are being tried or proposed, both from the
government and non-governmental side. Among them, we could also
mention by way of example the cases of Costa Rica, Canada, Iceland, The
Netherlands, Denmark, Sri-Lanka, Mongolia and, of course, the case of the
country that has motivated the Meeting for which this paper has been
prepared: Bhutan, about which we´ll comment more later. Even in USA
some interesting attempts have been made, mostly from the nongovernmental
side, such the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Index, an
unbundled set of indicators aimed at encouraging communitie´s
mobilization and self-affirmation, and the earlier mentioned Genuine
Progress Indicator (GPI), an attempt on the composite side to reform the
GDP.
continued here...
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