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The GNH Principle – How it works
Much has already been written about the grander aspects of Bhutan’s GNH principle. I seek here to return to the basics, the practical, if mundane, aspects of how it might be achieved.
THE BIRTH OF A NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY:
Bhutan became a hereditary monarchy in 1907. Under the reign of the third King cautious steps were in the 1950’s and 60’s to open the country to the outside world and modern development. The fourth King, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuk, was crowned in 1972 at the age of 17, after the sudden death of his father. From the beginning this young King realized uncontrolled “progress” could be a double edged sword.
He did not have to look far from his lessons. Bhutan’s close neighbor, Nepal, had similar conditions when it opened its doors to the outside world in the 1960’s. Nepal neither tried to foresightedly control the direction of progress, nor limited outside influence. Politics focused mainly on infrastructure and communication until the 1980’s. Thus, negative consequences were predestined and can still be felt today: lack of skilled people, soil erosion, corruption, to name just a few.
It was perhaps the social, environment and economic cost suffered by Nepal as well as the Kingdom’s native Buddhist traditions, which favour thoughtful change over unbridled materialism that led Bhutan’s King to draw his conclusion. “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product,”he was cited as saying in 1979 by an Indian newspaper.
How have those words since been translated into policy-making? To take just a few examples that show how GNH was understood long before its actual measurement was discussed.
Ecology: 26% of the Kingdom’s area is now protected within a system of national parks, and a minimum of 60% of the country is to remain under forest cover for all time.
Education: Construction and expansion of schools and free education, even in the remotest areas.
Tourism: Controlled and high value tourism was introduced instead of mass tourism.
Certainly, Bhutan’s development could have been faster and wider in material terms. But when it comes to crucial indicators of the progress of society, Bhutan’s relative success is becoming obvious. Compared to Nepal, Bhutan’s rate of unemployment, inflation, life expectancy, and literacy are indicators that speak volume.
THE HEART OF THE CONCEPT
Based on the classical economic viewpoint of progress, the core of GNH is the equilibrium of economic and non-economic goals of development. Many texts about GNH conclude that “Economic growth is not an end in itself but rather a means to achieve more important ends.” According to a definition formulated by professor Marc Mancall of Stanford university: “GNH is an integrated and system approach to change, with certain particular objectives, into which economic development must be consciously integrated as one, but only one, component.”
WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE
So far Bhutan has been doing relatively well under the stable and straightforward reign of the kings. In recent years, the fourth King has deliberately chosen to decrease his own power and strengthen democratically elected institutions. Earlier in 2008, the new parliament ratified the first constitution of Bhutan. “The state shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness,” says Article 9 of the constitution.
That leads us to a question “how can GNH be realized in a democracy?” Not in a sense of intellectual theorizing-there has been enough of that already – but in a real nuts and bolts way. In other words, how can we reduce the abstract goals and ideas of GNH to a concrete numbers and measurable quantities that will provide a real world grasp on the specific mechanism that will make it all work?
A corollary to the first question,thwn: “how can the stability of GNH policies be guaranteed with changing government and changing parties under the new democratic system?”
One way might be to inform politicians about the GNH – enabling conditions that are claimed in the constitutions. The second, more effective option may be to make politicians and their parties accountable for specific and realistically achievable goals of GNH. After all, the old management principle “what gets measured gets done” is still true today.
The measurement of GNH has been discussed in many workshops and conferences scattered throughout the 1990’s. The collective result of all these effort was that, in 2005, a government – planning document called for the building of a “GNH index”.
The main executing agency for this was the centre for Bhutan studies, a small autonomous research institute in the nation’s capital, Thimphu. According to the thinking, the GNH index would be based on nationwide surveys that would, ultimately, lead to the establishment of GNH indicators.
GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS ONLY IN BHUTAN
It is too early to assess all the impacts of this Bhutanese approach of measuring progress. And it is especially too early to reach conclusions about how this system might function in other societies. When following the future development of GNH, I would remark that the specific GNH model should always be read in the context of cultural, religious, and political factors that have made and still make Bhutan one of the most unique places on the planet.
Surprisingly enough, the term “Gross National Happiness” was also a political football in Europe for a short while more than three decades ago. An article in the New York times on May 14, 1972, reads with the voice of Sicco L. Mansholt, the then president of the European Commission:
“Obviously, the society of tomorrow cannot be based on growth, at least not in material goods,” Mansholt declared. “What is needed,” he said, “is Gross National Happiness index”.
The opposing response of the then secretary general of the Organization for Economic Coorporation and Development (OECD), Emile Van Lennep, is quoted in the same article:
“The vast majority of the inhabitants of the world today are not in a position to be greatly concerned about the ‘quality’ of their life”.
Luckily, today, we have arrived at an era in which we are indeed, concerned about about the “quality” of our lives and of those of others around us.
The growing numbers of attempts in the world to rethink how we measure progress – and I consider Bhutan’s idea of Gross National Happiness a veteran and a forerunner in these efforts – is the manifestation of this new paradigm shift.
Contact: Tobias pfaff, tobiaspfaff@uni-muenster.de