The Budget Debate had both major political parties, economic and political analysts, supporters and opponents tossing up, tossing around and tossing at each other terms like Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as they attempted to quantify the successes or failures of one administration or the other.

Some authorities describe the GNP as the total domestic and foreign output of a country while the GDP is described as the GNP excluding foreign payments and investments. They both have to do with the wealth of a country as a function of its total population. However, none of them addresses the fundamental human factor that makes all of this possible. That begs the question: Does a good or bad GNP/GDP equate with a happy or unhappy people?

In my formative years, my community consisted of the poor and even destitute. However, in spite of our economic woes, we were usually happy people. There was far less hate and crime. You could walk the streets of poor communities any time of night virtually without fear. Only stories of duppies and rolling calves (evil spirits) inspired trepidation in the superstitious.

I was, therefore, intrigued when I heard that some time ago the tiny Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan had stopped using their GNP to gauge their well-being; they used a measure of their Gross National Happiness (GNH) instead. The GNH is described as "an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than GNP".

This idea has been steadily gaining worldwide momentum; perhaps especially since the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". Esteemed universities like Cambridge and Oxford are researching ways of measuring individual and national well-being. A similar thinking is evident in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where they are measuring the Human Development Index (a combination of normalised measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment and GDP per capita).

The World Database of Happiness, directed by Ruut Veenhoven of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, in its 'Continuous register of scientific research on subjective appreciation of life' (from 2000-2008) ranked 145 countries according to their "average happiness". People were rated based on their enjoyment of life as a whole on a scale of 0 to 10. The happiest countries included Iceland (with 8.5 out of 10) and Denmark (8.4), the United States scored seven, Jamaica scored 6.6 out of 10 and the unhappiest country was Tanzania with 3.2 out of 10. [Veenhoven, R., World Database of Happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam. http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl]

Personal freedom

Assessing happiness can be difficult. Authors have remarked that a drug addict (for instance) would be 'happy' as long as he/she has access to recreational drugs. They also found that more permissive societies made for 'happy' citizens. Ostensibly, real happiness appears to depend on - prosperity (and this is, again, subjective), personal freedom and social tolerance.

Our Government must keep in mind that wealth does not necessarily denote prosperity - it is a function of acquired basic needs (shelter, amenities, food, comfort and the economic security to weather life's vicissitudes). People also need to feel safe to enjoy their personal freedom and to interact socially with others - friends are a major determinant of happiness. And finally, social tolerance - we tend to be intolerant of others with differing opinions, political affiliations, religions and sexual orientation. Until we (as a nation) respect individual human rights, no matter what our GNP/GDP, we will not be happy.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Feedback may be sent to garthrattray@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com