What is the measure of success?

“What is the measure of success?” or more correctly phrased, “Can Success be quantified?” We have long regarded wealth as a good measure of success, but is it really relevant? There is much inefficiency in using wealth to measure progress, these flaws have been demonstrated with use of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to measure the development of a country, it has proven to be an unreliable system as there are far more factors at play.

One of the factors that led to the downfall of the GDP system was that many countries made increasing their GDP a main priority, GDP is derived quantity and when the countries overemphasised on increasing GDP it created all sorts of problems such as high inflation and unemployment and this was on top of them receiving false data on their success, this creates a vicious cycle where countries are continually spurred on to increase their GPD directly, which leads to greater inefficiency in the system.

Wealth should not be the only factor in determining progress; there are far greater benefits in documenting the intangible and “immeasurable” aspects of life, such as happiness and social well-being. As a result politicians have been arguing in Britain for greater emphasis on the development of general well-being (GWB), it is a means to recognize the social, cultural and moral aspect of civilized life.

I believe that should there be a measure of success of a country, it should be a combination of GDP as well as GWB. As such, governments would continue to strive to improve their economies but not at the cost the peoples social welfare. This would lead to universal prosperity and it will abolish the biased connotations faced by the current GDP system.