What France and Bhutan have in common
France is moving toward using a metric for national happiness in its economic policy, something Bhutan has done for decades. For France, the transition is rather transparent, since the country hasn’t been performing as well as other developed countries in GDP terms, but should gain GNH (Gross National Happiness) points for its liberal labor and health policies.
GDP and per capita GDP are mostly valuable as proxies for happiness, so looking at other measures of well-being makes sense. This is especially true for countries like France, because wealth is a worse proxy for happiness the more you have of it:
In the early stages of a climb out of poverty, for a household or a country, incomes and contentment grow in lockstep. But various studies show that beyond certain thresholds, roughly as annual per capita income passes $10,000 or $20,000, happiness does not keep up.
Since we’re pretty clueless about what makes people happy, it’s still useful to look at measures like GDP. But I think it’s important not to think of GDP as a ends in itself.
