A story in today’s New York Times—about mounting evidence that U.S. consumers across all income levels are cutting back on spending and how that plays into the specter of recession—got me thinking about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of measuring progress with dollars and cents.
As I read about big chain stores like Nordstrom and Target experiencing a drop in business, and about high-end leather-goods purveyor Coach having to resort to offering coupons, I couldn’t help but think to myself, Well, isn’t this good in many ways? After all, it’s better for the environment when fewer resources are consumed.
The problem, of course, is that when businesses are squeezed, they tend to lay off workers. And people are part of the environment too. But as the authors of Cradle to Cradle (which I’m currently reading) put it, “GDP as a measure of progress emerged during an era when natural resources still seemed unlimited and ‘quality of life’ meant high economic standards of living. But if prosperity is judged only by increased economic activity, then car accidents, hospital visits, illnesses... and oil spills are all signs of prosperity.”
In recent years a new metric for progress has emerged: gross national happiness. There was just a conference held on the subject in Thailand a couple months ago. I keep seeing books and media coverage of the emerging field. And the Brookings Institution predicts that policymakers and governments may use GNH “to track a country’s happiness in the same way we now monitor economic conditions.”
Now, wouldn’t that be happiness-causing?
