23 October, 2009 - one of the strongest arguments for GNH is that economic growth does not always bring with it happiness. Economic growth is not important. But GNH needs it, nonetheless, for it to be workable. But economic development must not become blind capitalism or excessive greed for consumerism. How do you ensure that is the case?
Under GNH, the responsibility of the state is to create conditions where the citizen can seek and find happiness. The idea is that understanding what fosters wellbeing can help policy makers decide how to shape legislation or regulations.
Thus the Bhutanese government’s attempt to build roads, provide electricity, erect communications facilities, and supply clean drinking water in the rural areas, which have long subsisted off the mainstream development sphere. Farmers have repeatedly requested the government for these enhancements in the past. They said that it would make them happy.
But the pursuit of happiness has brought problems of its own in its wake. Roads and phones have lifted living standards, no doubt, but expectations have risen even faster. Deep in the villages of Bhutan’s heartland, people today dream of possessing things long out of their grasp, from fancy cell phones to televisions.
In top urban towns, Bhutan’s economic growth is kindling desires faster than it can convert them into reality. Anyone, who has been to a Thimphu or a Phuentsholing job fair, to a security guard recruitment camp, or to a FCB administration on the day it advertises new positions, has seen the crushing disappointment on the faces of thousands of eager young men and women when they find out there are only a couple of posts available.
What can happen when this yearning for a better life remains unsatisfied? Today Bhutan records 7% economic growth almost every year, but it can’t provide the work its people need. The result is a Darwinian scramble for employment: a few lucky ones get the jobs; others make do with whatever job comes their way; and on the fringes, some of the disgruntled become drug addicts or, worse, prostitutes.
The pursuit of happiness has also weakened old social bonds in the rural areas, where young people migrate to towns, leaving their parents and grandparents on their own. Urbanisation has awakened new desires for wealth and political power much like in India today. Meanwhile the economic gap between the rich and poor is deepening.
Lyonchhoen once told a Kuensel reporter: “GNH is about knowing when to say enough is enough.” In other words, GNH is about reining in your desires. What policies would help curb wants? Like GNH, desire is an individual thing. No one can force you to give up your wants.
What legislation would address the new challenge that faces Bhutan, the hunger for a better life, now unleashed among thousands of Bhutanese, ironically through GNH, and who will never again be satisfied with the way things used to be? What then for GNH?
