This week I came across a book in which I asked if money is lucky? There I found a quote from Henry Ford, an American businessman, saying, “It is not the businessman who pays the salaries. Entrepreneurs simply hand over money. It is the customer who pays the salaries ”. The same book summarizes the happiness measurements in the Kingdom of Bhutan, where they measure not GDP, but Gross National Happiness. What the book suggests is that they said the GDP measurement is very relative and not enough to tell if a country is rich or not. For example, it may seem that the United States has a higher GDP, but compared to other countries where the population is smaller, every inhabitant is much richer. So what are we really measuring? When analyzing the indicators and measurements in terms 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 global economies have led to the increase in inequality, the loss of diversity and the problems of climate change that we face today. If economics revolved around human well-being, taking the kingdom of Bhutan as a reference, a change could occur. The Council of Europe recently published that people’s well-being has value in itself, so is there any way to measure it?
Due to the emergence of new economies, some steps have been taken today in the direction of that new welfare economy. Below I give some examples that Luis Gallardo shares in his book.
The broad umbrella of the Wellbeing and Happiness Economy includes: circular economy, orange economy and green economy. The circular economy is one that focuses on reducing, reusing and recycling products, components and raw materials. This economy bases its efforts on sustainable and sustainable development. The orange economy, which I have talked about in several of my articles, is responsible for giving value, channeling and formalizing creative industries such as music, art, architecture, writing, dance, technology, etc.
Luis also mentions a new economy that is completely new to me, the green economy in which the connection between people and the environment is valued. In other words: our economic decisions have an impact on the ecosystem, therein lies the importance of awareness and taking 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 limits (guarding, restoring and investing in nature); The principle of good governance (let yourself be led by responsible, resilient people and integrated institutions); The principle of justice (promotion of equality between and within generations); The principle of efficiency and adequacy (supporting sustainable production and consumption) ”.
In this sense, GDP is not enough to measure what is really important for the new social dynamic. We need to put more emphasis on people’s mental health, especially given the state of the majority of citizens in the pandemic; emphasis on how technology has a positive and negative impact on human health; emphasis on an education in which people can learn to be mentally, physically and socially healthy, in which people are aware of the importance of well-being and happiness. If we managed to have that economy of well-being and happiness, we could prevent another pandemic, wars, inequality, inequality and poverty.