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Hard to measure that. Even GDP/capita is too rough a measure. People who do subsistence farming may not be starving or dirt poor, but GDP/capita completely fa
by cryptonector 2y ago
Hard to measure that. Even GDP/capita is too rough a measure. People who do subsistence farming may not be starving or dirt poor, but GDP/capita completely fails to capture their production and consumption. But at least GDP/capita is a decent enough measure because as a nation gets wealthier there is more specialization of labor and subsistence farming becomes a thing of the past (and along the way food security improves dramatically). But let's just say that food security enables happiness/contentment -- that the rest is up to each individual, because how else could it be?
- jampekka 2y agoThere are plenty of such measures. They just aren't very flattering for the GDP-growth dogma. See e.g. The World Happiness Report, (I)HDI, GNW, GNH.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoI checked the first two, and both the World Happiness Report and IHDI seem to be very well correlated with GDP per capita.
- jampekka 2y agoThe Happiness Index includes GDP per capita in their metric, IHDI includes GNI per capita.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoThat seems pretty flattering for the GDP-growth dogma, then, if organizations trying to measure happiness and human development feel that GDP statistics are an important input.
- cryptonector 2y agoGNI is about inequality, which again many of us in this thread argue is not a good measure. Bringing it back in through the backdoor doesn't help. Argue the points.
- jampekka 2y agoGNI is Gross National Income, which is not about inequality. It's essentially GDP corrected with money transfers from and to other countries. You're probably confusing it to the Gini coefficient.
- cryptonector 2y agoAh yes, sorry -- both pronounced the same way.