Re: [Pen-l] Green public investment - spend how much and on what

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

you're right. It's Bhutan.

Ideally, the "gross domestic happiness" measurement would be weighted
average of democratically-decided measures of goal-attainment, with
the relative weights also decided upon democratically. (It would be a
pure index number.) Obviously, raising GDH would not -- and could not
-- be the only goal. Its value would be only advisory.

One problem with democracy, of course, is that democratic decisions
usually do not represent the interests and values of non-citizens (as
suggested by the Wikipedia story). Clearly, we need universal
citizenship in a global democracy.


Doug Henwood wrote:
> What would be the unit of measure?
>
> I think you mean Bhutan, and here's what Wikipedia says about that:
>> Critics allege that because GNH depends on a series of subjective judgments about well-being, governments may be able to define GNH in a way that suits their interests. In the case of Bhutan, for instance, they say that the government expelled about one hundred thousand people and stripped them of their Bhutanese citizenship on the grounds that the deportees were  ethnic Nepalese who had settled in the country illegally. While this would reduce Bhutan's wealth [income?] by most traditional measures such as GDP, the Bhutan government claims it has not reduced Bhutan's GNH.<<

similar problems are seen with GDP, of course: increasing the length
of the work-week raises real GDP but increases misery.
-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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