Criteria we could use to judge & compare countries instead of GDP & military strength:
- % of population living in poverty
- child mortality
- average women’s educational level
- life expectancy
- standard of living for poorest 10% of population
- median leisure budget remaining after core expenses (rent, food, health, education)
- minimum wage v cost of living
- happiness index
- % population failed by social safety net
- preventable deaths
- environmental impact per population
Also amount of vacation/leisure time, and (possibly most importantly of all) the mode and rate of change of each item.
@adapalmer @wlonk I think of RFK’s 1968 speech about the GDP from time to time. It’s not a perfect speech, for sure, but it fairly eloquently lays out the problems with using the GDP.
I can’t imagine a presidential candidate from a major party today giving anything close to this speech. The GDP and the stock market are now widely seen as infallible benchmarks of national success, and it drives me bonkers.
@adapalmer
You mean like the Better Place Index? https://www.thebetterplaceindex.report/map
(I created the interactive map for this)
Any given Country is colour shaded as either doing well in the BPI [also through which factors] and/or doing poorly [and in what way/s]. Accordingly those blue shaded countries have higher Z-scores [toggle to contrast with] the green to yellow shades of those having lower Z-scores.
Attached: 1 image @[email protected] right! It’s just that the main measure of development at present is GDP, and we really need to move toward #degrowth (in a just and equitable way) rather than pushing everyone along that damaging path of fossil-fuel driven industrialisation. Something like #GrossNationalHappiness or the alternative models proposed by #KateRaworth’s #DoughnutEconomics are the sort of thing I’m thinking of.
@adapalmer All worthy metrics which if arrayed in an index (not excluding GDP+military power) would provide a much more just and ethical picture of a developed and enlightened society for the century ahead.
I would propose addition of:
- number of creative projects undertaken by populace professionally or hobby based, (everything from movies, games, songs and novels to sewing and sculpting, this one might seem indulgent between writers, but I think it's a key metric of the human spirit) (1/3)
- rarity of crime+rarity of litter (reasons I admire 🇯🇵 )
- % land given over to green spaces
- levels of charitable giving
- animal welfare+rights (including lab grown meat and veganism),
- abortion access+lack of stigma
- access to and universality of healthcare + number of people who enter medical profession and it's overall advancement (diseases cured/medicines developed) (2/3)
- rarity of homelessness
- rarity/illigality of catcalling/harassment
- rarity/Illegality of domestic violence (including corporal punishment of children)
- punctuality of public transport and lack of cars in towns/cities (🇯🇵 again)
- % population who can speak one or more foreign languages
- religious tolerence+separation of church and state
Many of these factors should be just as important to an honourable society money or blood, some more so. (END)
My fav b/c of it's extrad dose of wonkiness:
Gini index
@adapalmer % of population under control of the carceral state, and how much moreso, % of children under such control
(she says, while writing not only from the nation with the highest such %, but from a state within that nation that by itself has a higher % than any other democratic nation does)
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