Custom essays on Well-Being GDP: Its Historical Background and Its Future

Obviously, the aforementioned criticism of the traditional concept of GDP stimulated researchers (Heilbroner and Milberg 211) to start working on the development of alternatives or improvements to the conventional concept of GDP. In such circumstances the concept of the well-being GDP emerged. The concept of well-being GDP includes the idea of the well-being and the welfare not as an abstract concept but as an integral part of the life of people which has to be assessed and improved to make the life of people better that made done through the growth of the well-being GDP. In fact, the concept of the well-being GDP is closely associated with the economics of happiness. “The economics of happiness does not purport to replace income-based measures of welfare but instead to complement them with broader measures of well-being” (Graham, 2). Basically, the well-being GDP implies that the well-being of people and their happiness are crucial for any country and the well-being GDP is the tool with the help of which the well-being of people can be measured and evaluated, whereas the growth of the well-being GDP means the growth of the happiness and well-being of people. At this point, it is important to distinguish clearly the traditional GDP and the well-being GDP. The traditional GDP focuses on the economic development and the growth of GDP means the progress of the economy of a country and the growth of its wealth. However, such wealth does not necessarily mean the wealth of citizens of this country. In contrast, the well-being GDP focuses on the well-being of citizens and the growth of the well-being GDP means that people get happier and their well-being improves. In this regard, the economic development and economic growth are only partial conditions of the growth of the well-being GDP and the well-being of people because they cannot be always happy when they earn more, for instance. People need more for well-being. For instance, they need to be healthy to be happy. Therefore, non-material factors contributing to the well-being of people should be also taken into consideration, when the concept of the well-being GDP is defined.
Historical changes of the current capitalist economy
The emergence of the concept of the well-being GDP derives from consistent changes that have occurred to the contemporary capitalist economy. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the fact that the idea of well-being and welfare dates back to the 1920-s – 1930s, when the problem of the social inequality and widening gaps between the rich and the poor threatened to the stability of the existing social order in many states. In fact, the concept of the welfare state may be viewed as a precursor of the well-being GDP, which evolved throughout the 20th century and has been eventually shaped as the well-being GDP in recent years. The concept of the welfare state emerged in response to challenges the society faced in that time. To put it more precisely, the stagnating poverty threatened to the life of people and undermined the existing social order in leading countries of the world, including the UK, France, the US and others. In such a situation, various radical ideologies emerged, including such radical ideologies as communism and fascism.

The radical ideologies and desperate masses of people suffering from poverty threatened to the existing social order. In response to such threats, the concept of the welfare state was introduced. According to this concept, the state should take care of and responsibility for its citizens to protect from the poverty and other problems, which threaten to their life, health and well-being. Basically, the concept of the welfare state implied the mutual responsibility of the state and citizens. On the one hand, citizens agreed to maintain the existing social order and observe existing legal norms and standards, whereas the state, in response, agreed to provide its citizens with basic standards of living and to protect citizens from hardships through the redistribution of the national wealth from the rich to the poor or in any other way as long as the existing legal norms were observed and the state prevented the population from the ongoing pauperization.
The concept of the welfare state was extremely popular in the first half and the middle of the 20th century. The concept of the welfare state was a good alternative to radical ideologies which persisted in that time in the world. At the same time, the idea of the welfare state was very attracting to people because they obtained the guarantee from the part of the state that their basic needs and standards of living will be maintained by the state, if necessary. On the other hand, the ongoing development of the world economy and capitalism revealed the fact that the idea of the welfare state remained rather a sort of utopia than a true concept that could be implemented in the real life. In fact, in the course of the 20th century leading capitalist countries struggled with the poverty but till present days that have not solved the problem of poverty and a part of the population of the most developed countries of the world still lives in poverty. In other words, the concept of the welfare state did not work in the real life.
As a result, by the end of the 20th century it became obvious that a new concept was necessary to replace the concept of the welfare state. On the other hand, needs and expectations of people as well as the attitude of specialists to the concept of the well-being or welfare did not change much. People still needed a stable and normal life, which meet the basic standards of living, when people did not need to stumble through poverty and fight for survival on the regular basis. At the same time, the concept of the well-being GDP differed from the idea of the welfare state. The concept of the welfare state implied that it is the rich mainly who should share their wealth to help the state to maintain the poor. In such a way, the state performed the role of the body that redistributed the national wealth from the rich to the poor. In contrast, the concept of the well-being does not include the idea of the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. As the matter of fact, the concept of the well-being GDP stands on the ground that material values are the basis on the ground of which people and countries should build up their well being. In this regard, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the society grew conscious of the fact that people needed some basic standards of living below which they could not fall and the state should maintain these standards that was the concept of the welfare state in its basics.
However, the existence of material values and basic standards of living are not enough for the well-being. By the end of the 20th century the society arrives to the idea that the non-material values are of the utmost importance for the well-being of people. People understood eventually that material values are not enough to make them happy. Researchers (Graham, 211) conducted numerous studies to reveal reasons for happiness and, while assessing the happiness of people, they revealed the fact that people are not always happy, even if they are rich or if their standards of living are relatively high. Consequently, the wealth and prosperity do not always mean happiness and well-being. The late 20th century and the current economic development are marked by the tremendous shift toward the healthy lifestyle that makes people more and more concerned about their health. The focus of people on their health makes the health of individuals and public health one of the key items of the well-being GDP. The health proved to be of the utmost importance for people and health problems affected their self-assessment and their perception of the surrounding world. Therefore, the well-being GDP, as the new concept focused on well-being of countries and individuals, became an effective tool for the measurement and evaluation of well-being of people and economies, which included the assessment of the public health and basic trends in the health of the population at large, as integral elements of the well-being GDP and nation at large.