This week I came across a book in which I asked if money gives happiness ?. There I found a quote from Henry Ford, an American businessman, in which he said “It’s not the employer who pays the salaries. The employers only give the money. It’s the customer who pays the salaries.” This same book summarized the measures of happiness in the Kingdom of Bhutan where they measure not GDP, but Gross National Happiness. The suggestion of the book is that they mentioned that the measure of GDP is very relative and not enough to know whether a country is rich or not. For example, at first glance it would seem that the United States has a larger GDP, but compared to other countries in which the population is smaller, each inhabitant is much richer. So what are we really measuring? Analyzing the indicators and measures of happiness I came to a very interesting concept in the book by Luis Gallardo, founder of the World Happiness Fest and BE, the economy of happiness and well-being.
In his book he mentions that the world’s economies have led to the growth of iniquity, the loss of diversity, and the problems of climate change that we face today. If the economy revolved around human well-being, taking the Kingdom of Bhutan as a reference, it could generate change. The Council of Europe recently published that the well-being of people has value in itself, so is there a way to measure it?
Today some steps have been taken to make this new welfare economy, through the emergence of new economies. Here are several examples that Luis Gallardo shares in his book.
Beneath the great umbrella of the Welfare Economy and happiness lie: circular economy, orange economy, and the green economy. The circular economy is the one that focuses on reducing, reusing and recycling products, components and raw materials. This economy bases its efforts on sustainable and unsustainable development. The orange economy, which I have talked about in several of my articles, is responsible for giving value, channeling and formalizing the creative industries such as music, arts, architecture, writing, dance, technology, etc. .
Luis also mentions a new economy that, for me, is completely new, the green economy in which the interconnection between people and the environment is valued. That is, our economic decisions have an impact on the ecosystem, therein lies the importance of awareness and responsibility. “The principles of the Green Economy are: The principle of well-being (being able to create and enjoy progress and prosperity); The principle of planetary boundaries (safeguarding, restoring and investing in nature); The principle of good governance (guiding – by responsible, resilient people and integrated institutions); The principle of justice (promoting equity between and within generations); The principle of efficiency and sufficiency (support for sustainable production and consumption) “.
In this sense, GDP fails to measure what is really important for new social dynamics. We need to put more emphasis on people’s mental health, especially considering the state in which most citizens find themselves due to the pandemic; emphasis on how technology positively and negatively impacts human health; emphasis on an education in which people can learn to be mentally, physically and socially healthy, in which there is awareness of the importance of well-being and happiness. Perhaps if we could have this economy of well-being and happiness, we could prevent a new pandemic, wars, inequity, inequality and poverty.