Two momentous events occurred in the year 1776. The first, of course, was the drafting of the American Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. In the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men are created equal, That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, That among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) launched a worldwide human rights revolution that continues to this very day..
The second event was far less conspicuous. Adam Smith (1723-1790), a Scottish-born, Oxford-trained scholar, published The Wealth of Nations. In positing the existence of an 'invisible hand' - a hidden mechanism that regulated the economy whereby supply logically followed demand, Smith was arguing that consumers ultimately influence which goods are produced and how much they cost. If the public loves iPads, for example, they will buy them and create a need for a larger supply. In response, other computer companies will try to create a more advanced tablet-computer for a lower price in order to capture the market and reap large profits. To avoid losing its market share, Apple may lower the price of the iPad or develop a new, improved version to retain and perhaps expand its business. This inner logic between consumer choice, the market and technological innovation is Smith's 'invisible hand.'
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Since the market revolution of the 1830s and 1840s, the welfare of people inside nation-states has been largely discussed in terms of material progress. In 1934, Simon Kuznets (1901-1985), a brilliant American economist, revolutionized economic thinking amid the Great Depression. His econometric invention, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was a tabulation of all the goods and services produced by a country within a particular timeframe. Anyone who has ever followed the news is aware of GDP and has some understanding of its usage in both economic and political terms. In posting a GDP of 9.1% in the third quarter of 2011, it can be immediately and correctly inferred that China's economy remains robust - both wealth and jobs are being created. Contrastingly, the US GDP increased at a sluggish 2.0% over the same period. American consumer demand and production were low, and the number of jobs created was limited.
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The problem? Over the past few decades, politicians, economists and other technocrats in the West have successfully made GDP an all-defining figure that represents the well-being of working people. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Does the wealth of a nation rest solely on the size and productivity of its factories? Why has our standard of living become synonymous with the amount of goods we can consume - rather than our health or the number of friends and family members who love us - for example? These questions lead to another and more fundamental question: What is real wealth? Rather than commodities and money, two renowned figures of history, who had little in common overall, mounted similar challenges to the conventional definition of wealth, and as a result, they became highly influential in their respective times.
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Wesley and Goldman: A Christian and an Atheist Redefine Wealth
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In 1774, John Wesley (1703-1791), the principal founder of the Methodist Church, produced a pamphlet entitled Thoughts Upon Slavery. In arguing against slavery and the slave trade, Wesley offered a business ethic that is badly needed today: 'Better no trade than trade procured by villainy. It is far better to have no wealth than to gain wealth at the expense of virtue.' This should be the mantra of every owner and executive around the world.
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Wesley then took his argument one step further. Consider his following idea on the real wealth of a nation,
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"Wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation, but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of country. These are necessary to the real glory of a nation, but an abundance of wealth is not."
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Clearly, Wesley had not only read the words of Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament but he also sought to apply them to and in society. Here was a true Christian. Yet, Christians have hardly been the only ones to challenge the notion that a nation be defined by its material wealth and power.
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Born in Kovno, Lithuania, Emma Goldman (1869-1940) emigrated to the United States in 1885. Over the next half century, she became a leading figure of atheism and anarchism. For her, religion was a myth and a tyranny of the mind, and the state, including democratic states, existed to exploit people through various forms of coercion and ultimately - violence. In her seminal essay "Anarchism: What It Really Stands For" (1911), Goldman, who railed against the nexus of big business and the state, proclaimed,
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"Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in"
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Despite their ideological polarity, Wesley and Goldman were in fact operating off the same basic paradigm of decency, fairness, common sense and humanity. Real wealth consists of intangible things such as love, hope, friendship and knowledge. Can a nation with a high GDP and no freedom of speech such as China be said to have a truly high standard of living? According to Wesley, Goldman and an increasing number of people in the twenty-first century, the answer is apparent. Material production and consumption does not and should not be equated with that term.
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GNH Not GDP
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Jigme Singye Wangchuck (b. 1955) is not a household name throughout the world, but he ought to be. Shortly after taking power of the tiny South Asian nation of Bhutan in 1972, he decided to abandon GDP for a new metric - GNH or Gross National Happiness. Rather than defining a nation's wealth by its output of material goods, the Gross National Happiness (GNH) metric measures wealth qualitatively in terms of 'wellness' in seven categories: economic, environmental, physical, mental, workplace, social and political. As such, the quality of life for the average citizen is considered on many levels - inclusive of access to education, environmental conditions, the amount of daily stress (mental), the ability to secure living wages and affordable housing and the right of free speech and unencumbered political participation.
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As the democratic West was founded on "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," is it not time to do away with GDP - a production statistic that has little to do with the actual conditions of a person's life - and adopt GNH instead?
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Listen to Wesley, Goldman and Bhutan. A truly wealthy nation possesses compassion, virtue, respect and tolerance for others and has a reasonable balance between work and social life. The nation with the greatest wealth is one where its people have formed an enlightened community for the purpose of taking care of each other as one family.
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That is the happiness the world must strive for and ultimately achieve.
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(Image: An antique map of the world)
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J Roquen