Friday, March 4, 2011

Is Bhutan's GNH experiment a success or failure?

This charming little video provides some history of the concept of Gross National Happiness and its application in Bhutan.


It is amazing how much passion has been aroused by Gross National Happiness outside Bhutan. In August last year Jeffrey Sachs, a distinguished development economist, suggested that western countries should follow Bhutan in adopting Gross National Happiness as a national objective. His concern is that trends toward ‘hyper-consumerism’ have accelerated in the United States in recent decades and that this is destabilizing social relations and leading to aggressiveness, loneliness, greed, and over-work to the point of exhaustion. It is not self-evident that Sachs’ claims are true – and he provides no evidence in support of them. More importantly, it is not clear how he thinks adopting Gross National Happiness as a national objective in western countries would lead to better outcomes. I fear that the remedy he has in mind for alleged hyper-consumerism is additional paternalistic interventions by governments to further remove from individuals the responsibility to control their own lives.

On the other side of the canvas, Julie Novak, a free market liberal whose views I normally respect, has described Bhutan’s adoption of the GNH objective as a failed experiment. Julie’s reasoning seems to be that the experiment must have failed because Bhutan has a relatively low per capita GDP level and its ratings on various social indicators are also relatively low. However, I doubt whether many people would claim that adopting GNH as an objective can immediately lift the average well-being of people in a low-income country like Bhutan to a level comparable to that attainable in the most affluent countries. That would be just as silly as claiming that an increase in economic freedom can convert a low-income country immediately into a high-income country.

It makes more sense to compare Bhutan’s performance on various economic and social indicators with that of other low-income countries. The comparison I made between Bhutan and India, here, suggests that Bhutan has performed reasonably well. For example, Bhutan’s average economic growth rate of around 8 per cent per annum over the decade to 2007 was substantially higher than that for India.

It seems to me that it is far too soon to come to a judgement about Bhutan’s GNH experiment, particularly since it is only in recent years that a serious attempt has been made to measure GNH and there is little evidence to suggest how this information will actually be used in policy development. I concluded my research on this topic for APEL by suggesting that it is not yet clear to what extent the judgments implicit in the methodology reflect the values of the people of Bhutan on such matters as the dimensions of well-being that are important and the weighting that should be given to each dimension. One of my concerns is that the weight that people living in urban centres may wish to give to resilience of cultural traditions may differ substantially from that of people living a traditional rural lifestyle. It would not make sense to claim, for example, that the happiness of any individuals can be enhanced by forcing them to adopt traditional lifestyles if they would prefer more cosmopolitan lifestyles (or vice versa).

Postscript: May 8, 2011

In discussing GNH I have avoided discussing the Nepalese refugee problem because I don't know much about it. It is clear, however, that the government of Bhutan has been slow to repatriate refugees who were long-term residents of Bhutan prior to being forced to leave.

It is also of concern that in implementing its GNH policy the government of Bhutan is now apparently jailing people for having more that a very small amount of tobacco products in their possession. This is discussed by Sonam Ongmo on her Dragon Tales blog.

The idea that you can make people happy by jailing them seems peculiar.

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

* Marketists just love Sachs-bashing, don't they? Well, I must admit even I find dogooderism annoying at times.

* Perhaps a better remedy for hyperconsumerism than paternalistic intervention by governments is paternalistic rhetoric from marketists. It seems every discussion of America's 'sub-prime' mortgage crisis will include several remarks from the right blaming the 'sub-prime people' for making bad decisions (specifically, for 'overconsuming). I suggest a third alternative, consumer education, which should not be confused with public relations constructs such as 'financial education' or 'financial literacy.' Lesson One: The salescritter is not your friend.

* The point isn't whether Bhutan beats India (or any other country) in the GDP game. The point is exploring whether GDP is a prerequisite for happiness.

* I would say that growth, happiness and traditional values are three separate things. I take it King Wangchuk tells us tradition is the key to happiness?

* I agree that weighted indicators are BS, as they are based on the assumption that well-being is a scalar quantity. I suggest otherwise, despite certain limitations. I propose maxhi schema for individual self-reporting of 'happiness criteria.'

Winton Bates said...

Hi Lorraine
I will intersperse my responses with your comments:

* "Marketists just love Sachs-bashing, don't they? Well, I must admit even I find dogooderism annoying at times."
I think Sachs has his heart in the right place. I'm just a bit alarmed about the policies that he might think appropriate to pursue a GNH objective. I don't see that a GNH objective would add much to the well-being objectives that western democratic governments already pursue - unless its proponents think this is a way to introduce an additional element of coercion in pursuit of their objectives.

* "Perhaps a better remedy for hyperconsumerism than paternalistic intervention by governments is paternalistic rhetoric from marketists. It seems every discussion of America's 'sub-prime' mortgage crisis will include several remarks from the right blaming the 'sub-prime people' for making bad decisions (specifically, for 'overconsuming). I suggest a third alternative, consumer education, which should not be confused with public relations constructs such as 'financial education' or 'financial literacy.' Lesson One: The salescritter is not your friend."
I don't think consumers should be blamed for the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It is all very well to say that with the benefit of hindsight a lot of people over-committed - but I think most of those decisions would look pretty rational given the inflation expectations etc prevailing when they were made.
I agree with you about the importance of consumer education, but I can't see anything wrong with financial literacy.


* "The point isn't whether Bhutan beats India (or any other country) in the GDP game. The point is exploring whether GDP is a prerequisite for happiness."
I deserve that comment:) In my defence, economic growth is particularly important in low income countries because so much else depends on it. Apart from getting enough food, reasonable housing etc, the quality of health and education services depends on the productive capacity of the economy.

* "I would say that growth, happiness and traditional values are three separate things. I take it King Wangchuk tells us tradition is the key to happiness?"
A lot depends on how you define happiness. The GNH definition is a very broad measure of well-being.
If you define happiness more narrowly as emotional well-being it makes sense to say that well-being is a function of wealth, health, emotional well-being,sense of achievement etc etc.
King Wangchuk certainly placed a lot of emphasis on cultural traditions. But he also emphasized environmental values, emotional well-being and acknowledged the importance of material standard of living.

* "I agree that weighted indicators are BS, as they are based on the assumption that well-being is a scalar quantity. I suggest otherwise, despite certain limitations. I propose maxhi schema for individual self-reporting of 'happiness criteria.' "
Thanks for your reference to maxhi. I think something similar has been used in a happiness measurement project in the Philippines.