My grandmother was born in 1901, Joana Cherubim, when she turned 46 years old, they invented such a GDP – Gross Domestic Product, she passed away in 2000 and I believe without knowing what GDP meant, although she had a dignified and full life.
If Brazil decreases GDP by 7% in 2020, it will be catastrophic, economists say and I ask: And if Brazil increases GDP by 7%, how will the life of this “nobody” of tens of millions of Brazilians who just received their Personel Number? And R $ 600.00 (six hundred reais)? Would their lives improve significantly with a Chinese GDP in Brazil? I do not believe! The fact that a country is rich does not imply that its people are rich and much less happy!
My grandmother followed her life, dragging Portuguese with an Italian accent and in the 1960s, when she was already an elderly person, North Americans discovered that GDP did not exactly reflect the population’s “status quo” and started creating several indices to measure these extremely variable conditions from person to person.
Brazil GNP 2015 2019
In an example, suppose inflation, it does not reflect the effects in an identical way among families, the strong increase of an Italian wine Barolo Falletto is not felt by a vulnerable family, whereas, if the important increase occurs in the kilo of sugar, this vulnerable family will feel in the vein.
The indexes in the 60s popped up and, in 1972, the GDH – Gross Domestic Happiness – appeared in Bhutan, on this date, my grandmother who had not had contact with the GDP, the GDH was so distant that when she died in 2000, the GDH had not reached her – although – she knew very well what happiness was and knew how to enjoy the simple things that life offered her at a price that everyone can afford.
We are in 2020 still guided by GDP, some social indexes we sometimes follow and sometimes we forget when it is convenient. But, is being happy directly proportional to the amount of money we have in our pockets? No. However, if we have no money, we can say that we are unhappy. So, there are a number of minimum resources and a number of maximum resources where happiness can sail without major stumbling blocks.
If we look at Jeff Bezos with an estimated fortune of more than $ 100 billion, it will be difficult to say that to take advantage of all that money he has lunch twice a day. It’s hard to even say that this guy is happy or not, he just split up with his wife and everyone knows how traumatic this episode is.
The GDH is something that my grandmother already knew before the GDP, most likely she would not be able to put it on paper, but in the heart. The GDH measures:
- The standard of living,
- the level of education,
- the health,
- governance,
- the cultural level,
- community vitality (exclusion from poverty, exclusion from insecurity, exclusion from lack of education),
- ecological resilience,
- the balanced use of time and,
- psychological well-being.
In other words, it is much more than an index, it measures through questionnaires – which have been improved in recent decades – a “way” to live and be happier. Obviously, when we give a certain weight to the standard of living, this variable will be directly connected to the economy. Now, suppose you buy a Ferrari 250 GTO whose value is expected to be around 60 million dollars, there are 39 copies of this model in the world, the question is: Where would you ride this Ferrari? On the streets of São Paulo, respecting the car rotation, of course? So, there should be a limit to earnings, it makes no sense for football players to earn millions “a day” waiting in their mansions for the green light to go out on the field, while nurses and doctors die in hospitals as the vaccine does not arrive. It does not make sense for civil servants in Brazil to have earnings “n” times higher than private employees. It does not make sense for differentiated rents to be treated equally with identical taxes. It does not make sense that large fortunes are not taxed. It does not make sense to leave the same rentier and producers side.
The current world is full of indices, whether economic or social, the economic ones are mostly connected to the GDP and its offspring, such as the NNP – Net National Product and the social ones like the HDI – Human Development Index or even the HFI – Human Freedom Index, and there follows an endless list. Do we need so many indexes? No information is equal to millions of information, both scenarios make us a perfect ignorant.
In the 1960s, the social indices born in North America did not reach my grandmother, the reason was simple, we started a period of 20 years led by the military and despite their good intentions (no one died rich), the motto came from comtism ” order and progress ”- doctrine of the French Auguste Comte (1798/1857). After the end of the military era in 1985, when my grandmother was over 80 years old, she remained firm without connecting with the GDP, although some military governments had reached the impressive mark of 8.5% GDP growth in a single year, she never heard of it. One thing I believe that intrinsically she knew, with six children alive at the time, GDP did not measure the well-being of her offspring.
It is convenient that the GDP is not negative, if it shows a drop-in production and services, on the other hand, what is the ideal GDP? How can a country grow indefinitely within a planet whose resources are exhaustible? It is not possible to aim for a growth of 5% per year “Ad Eternum” and understand that the “ship” will suffer nothing!
When my grandmother passed 90 years old, a record for this generation, they created the HDI – Human Development Index. You will agree with me, there was no need to try to explain this new acronym to her and, to be honest, her interest in ice cream was infinitely greater. In 1992 they created the PFI – Political Freedom Index, I was even tempted to inform it, but I was afraid of it asking: What about Getúlio, Died? (Getúlio Dornelles Vargas 1882 -1954 was a Brazilian lawyer, military and politician, leader of the Revolution of 1930, that ended the Old Republic, deposing its 13th and last president, Washington Luís, and preventing the inauguration of the president elected on March 1st 1930, Julio Prestes. He was president of Brazil in two periods.)
As close to the date as she left this ship in 1995, the authorities launched the Gender-Adjusted Development Index (GADI), the index aimed at measuring the differences between men and women. My grandmother did not go to church wearing pants, she understood that this was absurd, the priest would never forgive her. So, how to explain to her this GEM (Gender Empowerment Measure – GEM), an index dedicated to women and men when tribes are the most diverse, it would be even more complicated to explain these “new” concepts.
In 2006 the World Economic Forum launched the GGI – Global Gender Gap Index measuring the differences between sexes in four variables, economic participation, education, health and political participation.
Before getting to know this news in 2000, my grandmother left this planet, it was better that way. Gonzaguinha (national poet), who left us before my grandmother in 1991, wrote: “We want to live happiness”. Right was my grandmother who left this ship without knowing the GDP but knew “The need is that it makes the frog jump”.
We are in a time of change and we hope that for the better, then, why do companies and countries do not adopt GDH and, are we going in numerical search for such happiness?
