We live in a world of stories, facts and numbers. Numbers often drive politics even though many do not understand what those numbers mean. Numbers appear to be definite. One and one make two. Really? If you have two apples, that is one and one making two. What if one of the apples is rotten? Is it still two apples? What if one of the apples is smaller than a plum? Is it still two apples? What if one is a horse apple or an Adam’s apple? Numbers are simple only in theory.

Numbers also and often unfortunately drive ethical discussions: “the greatest good for the greatest number, etc.” One critical number in this society and many other is the Gross National Product. Often subjected to interpretation and re-interpretation depending on your policy view, this number is considered the measure of success for a society. That no one is exactly sure what it means or that we are often ambivalent as to whether or not money can buy happiness. We often yield to the tyranny of this number. Ethical thinking does not stop when confronted by a statistic. It is something of a wall to be climbed over but much thought has to overcome the complex and the mundane.

France has been confronting the question of how to measure the country’s prosperity, through Gross Domestic Product or the Happiness Index. Today, it was announced that GDP has won out over the other measure.

In 2007, the French Government commissioned American Economist, Joseph Stiglitz to develop economic measurements that included happiness and other quality of life measurements.

There have been modifications to the simple idea of GDP in the past. For instance the United Nations uses the Human Development Index which is based on measurements of life expectancy, education and standard of living.

Gross National Happiness measures sociological and psychological elements as well as economic ones to determine a nation’s success. It was expected that Stiglitz’s ideas would move French measurements in that direction. But it was not to be.