Introspecting Development 

Confusion about the real meaning of development started only after the world Bank and the international Monetary Fund came into being. As experts were studying the development process of the developing world, they were also surveying the performance reports of the developed world. As the western world came to be regarded as developed, having top twenty ranks on the HDI, social scientists started evaluating the conditions of life in these economies. Most of such studies concluded that life in the developed world is anything but happy. Crime, corruption, burglaries, extortion, drug trafficking, flesh trade, rape, homicide, moral degradation, sexual perversion, etc.—all kinds of the so-called vices—were thriving in the developed world. It means development had failed to deliver them happiness, peace of mind, a general well-being and a feeling of being in good state. Scholars started questioning the very efforts being made for development around the world. Most of them have suggested a need of redefining development which could deliver happiness to mankind.
Why has development not delivered happiness to the developed world? The answer to this question does not lie in any one objective fact, but touches so many areas of human life.

First, whenever economists from the outset talked about progress they meant overall happiness of human life. Social scientists, somehow have been using terms such as progress, growth, development, well-being, welfare as synonyms of ‘happiness’. Happiness is a normative concept as well as a state of mind. Therefore, its idea might vary from one economy to the other.
Second, the period in which development was defined, it was considered that with the supply of some selected material resources human life can be improved. These resources were pinpointed as, a better level of income, proper level of nutrition, healthcare facilities, proper levels of literacy and education, etc.

Happiness is a broader thing than development. The so-called ‘development’ for which the world has been striving hard for the last many decades is capable of delivering material happiness to mankind. Happiness has its non-material side also. It means, while the world has been trying to maximise its prospects of development, i.e., material happiness, it could not attend the non-material part of happiness. The non-material part of our life is rooted in ethics, religion, spiritualism and cultural values. As development or human development was defined in material terms, it could only deliver us material happiness which is visibly available in the developed world. Due to partial definition of development, the developed world has been able to achieve
development, i.e., happiness, but only of material kind. For the non-material part of happiness, we need to redefine our ‘ideas’ of development.
Somehow a very small kingdom had been able to define development in its own way, which included material as well as non-material aspects of life and named it the Gross National Happiness (GNH). This country is Bhutan. 

Gross National Happiness:

 Bhutan, a small Himalayan kingdom and an economic non-entity, developed a new concept of assessing development in the early 1970s—the Gross National Happiness (GNH). Without rejecting the idea of human development propounded by UNDP, the
kingdom has been officially following the targets set by the GNH. Bhutan has been following the GNH since 1972 which has the following parameters to attain happiness/development:

• Higher real per capita income

•  Good governance

•  Environmental protection

•  Cultural promotion (i.e., inculcation of ethical and spiritual values in life without which, it says, progress may become a curse rather than a blessing) At the level of real per capita income, the GNH and the HDI are the same. Though the HDI is silent on the issue of ‘good governance’, today it should be considered as being promoted around the world once the world Bank came with its report on it in 1995 and enforced it upon the member states. On the issue of protecting environment, though the HDI didn’t say anything directly, the world Bank and the UNO had already accepted the immediacy of sustainable development by then and by early 1990s there was a separate UN Convention on the matter (follow up on this convention has been really very low till date which is a different issue).

It means the basic difference between the GNH and the HDI looks at the level of assimilating the ethical and spiritual aspects into our (UNDP’s) idea of development. An impartial analysis sufficiently suggests that material achievements are unable to deliver us
happiness devoid of some ethics at its base. And ethics are rooted in the religious and spiritual texts. But the new world is guided by its own scientific and secular interpretation of life and the world has always been suspicious about recognising the spiritual factor in human life. Rather the western idea of secularism was defined after rejecting the very existence of anything like God
and also rejecting the whole traditional hypothesis of spiritualism as instances of ignorance and orthodoxy. And there should not be any doubt in accepting it that the western ideology in the name of development has ultimately, dominated the modern world and its way of life. The idea of development which was followed by a large part of the world has been cent per cent ‘this worldly’. And anybody can assess today what kind of happiness the world has been able to achieve in the end.
A recent study by a senior economist from the UNDP on the Bhutanese development experience under the GNH has vindicated the idea of ‘gross happiness’ which development must result into. As per the study, the period 1984–98 has been spectacular in terms of development with life expectancy increasing by a hopping 19 years, gross school enrolment reaching 72 per cent and literacy touching 47.5 per cent (from just 17 per cent).

 HAPPINESS

India has improved its rank by three spots to acquire 136th position in the United Nations' World Happiness Report for the year 2022. India has improved its rank by three spots to acquire 136th position in the United Nations' World Happiness Report for the year 2022, which ranked 146 countries.

The World Happiness Report 2020 was released on 20th March 2020 (the International Day of Happiness). The 156-nation report (though, only 153 nations have been ranked), 8th in the series (no report was published in 2014), ranks nations on the basis of ‘reported happiness’ by their citizens. Aimed at ‘guiding public policy’ of the nations, the report measures and ranks the
nations on the basis of the following six variables:

• GDP per capita (at PPP)

•  Social support (someone to count on)

•  Healthy life expectancy at birth

•  Freedom to make life choices

•  Generosity

•  Perception of corruption

Major Highlights

The top 10 happiest countries with their ranks in 2019 given in brackets following their names are—1st Finland (1), 2nd Denmark (2nd), 3rd Switzerland (6th), 4th Iceland (4th), 5th Norway (3rd), 6th The Netherlands (5th), 7th Sweden (7th), 8th New Zealand (8th), 9th Luxembourg (14th) and 10th Austria (10th). In this year’s report captured the 9th rank by pushing Canada to down to rank 14th.
¦ Countries ranked from 11th to 20th with their ranks in 2019 given in brackets following their names are—11th Canada (9th), 12th Australia (11th), 13th United Kingdom (15th), 14th Israel (13th), 15th Costa Rica (12th), 16th Ireland (16th), 17th Germany (17th), 18th USA (19th), 18th Czech Republic (20th) and 20th Belgium (18th). The bottom three least happy countries are those afflicted by ‘violent conflicts’ and ‘extreme poverty’—Zimbabwe (151), South Sudan (152) and Afghanistan (153) ranke the last.

The Meaning of Happiness

The word ‘happiness’ is quite complex and is not used lightly. Happiness is an aspiration of every human being, and can also be a measure of social progress. Yet, are the citizens of different countries, happy? If they are not, what, if anything, can be done about it? The key to proper measurement must begin with the meaning of the word ‘happiness’. As per the WHR 2013, the problem, of course, is that happiness is used in at least two ways:

•  As an emotion [‘Were you happy yesterday?’], and

•  As an evaluation [‘Are you happy with your life as a whole?’].

If individuals were to routinely mix up their responses to these very different questions, then measures of happiness might tell us very little. Changes in reported happiness used to track social progress would perhaps reflect little more than transient changes in emotion. Or impoverished persons who express happiness in terms of emotion might inadvertently diminish society’s will to fight poverty. Fortunately, respondents to the happiness surveys do not tend to make such confusing mistakes. Both the WHRs did show that the respondents of the surveys clearly recognise the difference between happiness as an emotion and happiness in the sense of life satisfaction. The responses of individuals to these different questions are highly distinct. A very poor person might report himself to be happy emotionally at a specific time, while also reporting a much lower sense of happiness with life as a whole; and indeed, people living in extreme poverty do express low levels of happiness with life as a whole. Such answers should spur our societies to work harder to end extreme poverty.
The WHR is based on the primary measures of subjective well-being; life evaluations; life satisfaction; and happiness with life as a whole. Thus, happiness, appears twice, once as an emotional report, and once as part of a life evaluation, giving considerable evidence about the nature and causes of happiness in both its major senses.

The Background
In July 2011 the UN General Assembly passed a historic resolution. It invited member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to help guide their public policies. This was followed in April 2012 by the first UN high-level meeting on happiness and well-being, chaired by the Prime Minister of Bhutan. At the same time the first World Happiness Report was published, followed some months later by the OECD Guidelines setting an international standard for the measurement of well-being. 

Re-imagining the Idea of Happiness

Search for a ‘happier’ life for humanity has been the ultimate aim of not only saints, seers and philosophers, but of economists too. The whole gamut of economics literature on progress, growth and development is ultimately aimed at bringing more ‘happiness’ into the lives of human beings. Over the time, diverse ideological currents impressed upon the humanity to take variety of ‘meanings’ out of the highly subjective term ‘happiness’—and finally, the humanity is where it is today.
A time also came when many scholars and world leaders raised the ultimate question—are we happier today? And in the wake of this increased ‘scrutiny’ around the world, there came the UN resolution of 2011 which invited member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to help guide their public policies. The WHR 2012 itself provides a very interesting and eye-opening inquiry into the state of human happiness in the world.

To understand the ‘shift’ which is expected to take place among policymakers around the world in coming years, it will be better to lift some ideas from the first WHR:

(i) This is an age of stark contradictions. While at the one hand the world enjoys technologies of unimaginable sophistication, at the other hand, at least one billion people are living without enough to eat. The world economy is propelled to soaring new heights of productivity through ongoing technological and organisational advances; yet it is relentlessly destroying the natural environment in the process. Countries achieve great progress in economic development as conventionally measured; yet along the way countries succumb to new crises of obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, and other ills of modern life. These contradictions would not come as a shock to the greatest sages of humanity, including Aristotle and the Buddha, who taught humanity, time and again, that material gain alone will not fulfil our deepest needs. Material life must be harnessed to meet these human needs, most importantly to promote the end of suffering, social justice and the attainment of happiness.

(ii) The WHR 2012 took key examples from the USA—the world’s economic superpower— which has achieved striking economic and technological progress over the past half century without gains in the self-reported happiness of the citizenry with the following serious ‘concerns’ of today:

• uncertainties and anxieties are high,

•  social and economic inequalities have widened considerably,

• social trust is in decline, and

•  confidence in government is at an all-time low.

Perhaps for these reasons, life satisfaction in the USA has remained nearly constant during the decades of rising Gross National Product (GNP) per capita.
(iii) The realities of poverty, anxiety, environmental degradation, and unhappiness in the midst of great plenty should not be regarded as mere curiosities. They require our urgent attention, and especially so at this juncture in human history. For we have entered a new phase of the world, termed the Anthropocene by the world’s Earth system scientists. The Anthropocene will necessarily reshape our societies. If we continue mindlessly along the current economic trajectory, we risk undermining the Earth’s life support systems— food supplies, clean water and stable climate—necessary for human health and even survival in some places. In years or decades, conditions of life may become dire in several fragile regions of the world. We are already experiencing deterioration of life support systems in the dry lands of the Horn of Africa and parts of Central Asia.
On the other hand, if we act wisely, we can protect the Earth while raising quality of life broadly around the world. We can do this by adopting lifestyles and technologies that improve happiness (or life satisfaction) and reduce human damage to the environment.
Sustainable Development is the term given to the combination of human well-being, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. There is no doubt in concluding that the ‘quest for happiness’ is intimately linked to the ‘quest for sustainable development’.
(iv) In an impoverished society, the urge for material gain typically makes a lot of sense. Higher household income (or higher per capita GNP) generally signifies an improvement in the life conditions of the poor. The poor suffer from dire deprivations of various kinds: lack of adequate food supplies, remunerative jobs, access to health care, safe homes, safe water and sanitation, and educational opportunities. As incomes rise from very low levels, human well-being improves. Not surprisingly, the poor report a rising satisfaction with their lives as their meager incomes increase.
(v) Affluence has also created its own set of afflictions and addictions (problems)— obesity, adult-onset diabetes, tobacco-related illnesses, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, psychosocial disorders, and addictions to shopping, TV and gambling, are all examples of disorders of development. So too is the loss of community, the decline of social trust and the rising anxiety levels associated with the vagaries of the modern globalised economy, including the threats of unemployment or episodes of illness not covered by health insurance in the United States (and many other countries).  The paradox that Easterlin noted in the US was that at any particular time richer individuals are happier than poorer ones, but over time the society did not become happier as it became richer.

This is due to four reasons:

•  Individuals compare themselves to others. They are happier when they are higher on the social (or income) ladder. Yet when everybody rises together, relative status remains unchanged.

•  The gains have not been evenly shared, but have gone disproportionately to those at the top of the income and education distribution.

•  The other societal factors—insecurity, loss of social trust, declining confidence in government—have counteracted any benefits felt from higher incomes.

•  Individuals may experience an initial jump in happiness when their income rises, but then at least partly return to earlier levels as they adapt to their new higher income.

(vii) These phenomena put a clear limit on the extent to which rich countries can become happier through the simple device of economic growth. In fact, there are still other general reasons to doubt the formula of ever rising GNP per person as the route to happiness. While higher income may raise happiness to some extent, the quest for higher income may actually reduce one’s happiness. In other words, it may be nice to have more money, but not so nice to crave for it. Psychologists have found repeatedly that individuals who put a high premium on higher incomes generally are less happy and more vulnerable to other psychological ills than individuals who do not crave higher incomes. Aristotle and the Buddha advised humanity to follow a middle path between asceticism on the one side and craving material goods on the other.
(viii) Another problem is the creation of new material ‘wants’ through the incessant advertising of products using powerful imagery and other means of persuasion. Since the imagery is ubiquitous on all of our digital devices, the stream of advertising is more relentless than ever before. Advertising is now a business of around US $500 billion per year. Its goal is to overcome satiety by creating wants and longings where none previously existed. Advertisers and marketers do this in part by preying on psychological weaknesses and unconscious urges. Cigarettes, caffeine, sugar, and trans-fats, all cause cravings if not outright addictions. Fashions are sold through increasingly explicit sexual imagery. Product lines are generally sold by associating the products with high social status rather than with real needs.

 INSIGHTS INTO HUMAN BEHAVIOUR 

The World Bank in its report (World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behaviour) said that development policies become more effective when combined with insights into human behaviour. It further adds that policy decisions informed by behavioural economics can deliver impressive improvements in promoting development and well-being in society. It sites some examples from India in the areas of healthcare and education:

• Open defecation dropped 11 per cent from very high levels after a Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme was combined in some chosen villages with the standard approach of subsidies for toilet construction and information on the transmission of diseases.

• The likelihood of default on loans became three times less with a simple change in the periodicity of meetings between microfinance clients and their repayment groups to weekly rather than monthly.

• Research showed that boys from backward classes were just as good at solving puzzles as boys from the upper castes when caste identity was not revealed. However, in mixed caste groups, revealing the boys’ castes before puzzle-solving sessions created a significant “caste gap” in achievement with the boys from backward classes underperforming by 23 per cent (making caste salient to the test takers invoked identities, which in turn affected performance, as per the report).

The Report has recommended that the presence of a stereotype can contribute to measured ability differences, which in turn reinforce the stereotype and serve as a basis for exclusion, in a vicious cycle—finding ways to break this cycle could increase the well-being of marginalised individuals enormously.