Every so often one reads of an argument that we should measure a nation's success by something other than Gross National Product (GNP). Yet with all due respect, like the weather, folks talk about measuring a nation's happiness but don't do anything about it ... unless you're in Bhutan. Go to the The Wall Street Journal India blog to read a piece by my friend Vishal Arora about the conflict between happiness and mammon in Bhutan.
I'm certainly not one to believe that the measure of either a nation's or an individual's success can be measured in dollars and cents. Yet not since the collapse of the Puritan experiment in the middle of the seventeenth century has any polity within what is now the United States ever put something other than money at the top of the list. If the relatively homogeneous Puritans of Massachusetts Bay couldn't pull it off, no other civil government in these parts is likely to be successful.
One wonders if Bhutan's emphasis on happiness makes anyone unhappy. Arora's article suggests that folks who value money more than government-defined happiness aren't too pleased. For what it's worth, I'm enough of a non-libertarian conservative to believe that Bhutan should be free to chart it's idiosyncratic way as long as it provides its citizens with exit rights. Conversely, even a polity that prides itself on its economic prosperity--especially one as large as the United States--should provide space for happiness-minded citizens to flourish.
I'm certainly not one to believe that the measure of either a nation's or an individual's success can be measured in dollars and cents. Yet not since the collapse of the Puritan experiment in the middle of the seventeenth century has any polity within what is now the United States ever put something other than money at the top of the list. If the relatively homogeneous Puritans of Massachusetts Bay couldn't pull it off, no other civil government in these parts is likely to be successful.
One wonders if Bhutan's emphasis on happiness makes anyone unhappy. Arora's article suggests that folks who value money more than government-defined happiness aren't too pleased. For what it's worth, I'm enough of a non-libertarian conservative to believe that Bhutan should be free to chart it's idiosyncratic way as long as it provides its citizens with exit rights. Conversely, even a polity that prides itself on its economic prosperity--especially one as large as the United States--should provide space for happiness-minded citizens to flourish.
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