According to an article I read a few days back researchers at Pennsylvania University have calculated that America is nr. 27. on the WISP list.
And here are the top ten...

1. Sweden
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. Finland
5. Luxemburg
6. Germany
7. Austria
8. Iceland
9. Italy
10. Belgium
...
27. USA

The WISP is different from GDP because it is also calculated from life expectancy, environment both at the workplace and nature, justice system, equal rights, free time and education level of the nation.

How do Americans feel about this, and why do you think this is?

P.S.
Can someone please tell me what WISP stands for I know in Icelandic it's "Vísitala félagslegrar þróunnar", as if that would help . I translated this thread from Icelandic so there are possibly some mistakes.

Ikeaboy69

This doesn't bother me. There are an infinite number of ways you can attempt to measure the well being of a nation's people. This method happens to put the US at 27th and Sweden at 1st. As a personal matter, I would not like to pay the high taxes that Swedes do. This would put a damper on my personal happiness, so I disagree with this measurement, but I'm sure someone can make a case for it.

You have to take measurements like this with a grain of salt because at some point, someone’s biases will play a large factor. For instance, when quantifying the “judicial system” factor: how do you relate nations with the death penalty and those without? One person, who is opposed to the death penalty, might think a nation without it should get 10 points. Another person, who is VERY against the death penalty, might say an execution ban is worth 50 points. This bias factor comes into play for every non-concrete variable of a well-being measurement system. (Not to mention the fact like some people, like myself, support the death penalty.)

You can see how biases play a large role in a measurement system like WISP.

GDP, although not perfect, offers a more defensible measurement of well being when considered on a per capita basis. Although there is some wiggle room in the definition of GDP, as well as the method of measurement, I think it offers something more solid than a system that tries to take into account subjective factors.

You can even make a fairly strong case that higher GDP per capita affords a population more ability to pursue the 'luxuries' (i.e. clean environment, better judicial system) of its choosing. You can then argue that a people will choose what makes it happy. Using this logic, GDP per capita links directly to happiness.

Actually many systems are in place to avoid such contamination, if you will, of studies, such as a double or single blind, and the controlled layout and recording of everything you deal with for presentation to peers. Quantitative studies can get past the human element per say, even if the whole system is made by humans in the first place, and most likely possible only because its possible by humans

Well, anyways, besides what the study says, i will try not to get into any vulgar details of anything to much but to ask if it took into account the size of populations.

GDP, like most terms related are rather abstract, as i am sure gdp by itself does not factor in pop music or amount of salty buttered popcorn sold.

As for the death penalty, i wont even go into the flawed area of our system

Anyone notice a trend with the top 10? They are all European...not that I have anything against Europeans because I am one..but what is this WISP using to determine these rankings?

Australia had 3 cities in the top 5 of best places to live in the world...two of them tied for number one and the other was in third place. Switzerland was in there too with also two cities tied at fourth and Canada was also placed in a tie for first place and fourth place ...where are they on this list?

And Italy ranks ninth!? How does that exactly happen with Berlusconi in the picture? And the recent "remarks" from his administration? Oh yeah Italy is a leader in social reforms. Is this a joke?

Ikeaboy69: do you have a link to this article. I can't seem to find anything on this...

EDIT: I think I found it...WISP

As near as I can figure WISP = World Indicator of Social Progress.

I assume this has something to do with averages... ?

The richest people in the world may be Americans, but how many people in America live below the poverty line in comparison?

I don't know, but I do know that here in Denmark, the average person lives in comfort and security and has free eductaion and medical care.


campbejm

The amount of money I make, as a Dane, is so high, that even after the government has taken away 50% of my wages, I still have far more than the average worker of any other nation on the planet. You see, the wage system is geared towards high taxes, and we actually never notice how much we are paying to the state.

It always makes me laugh to hear Americans express horror at how much we lose to the state each month, but the fact is that if the taxes were to be lowered, then the wages would adapt and we would simply receive less money...

I disagree with everything you said here.

1) There is no way to create a system that attempts to quantify a population's happiness my "measuring" subjective factors without having to go through a judgment call about those factors. "Blind" and "Double Blind" studies are techniques for eliminating biases in studies like the testing of drugs, not value based judgments. These methods have nothing to do with assigning a quantified relationship between, for example, clean environment and happiness. You can say a clean environment leads to happier people, but you cannot assign rankings and scale to subjective areas like this without going through human bias.

2) GDP is not abstract. It is defined as the level of production of a nation. There is nothing abstract about that. If a small nation of 1 person produces 1 BMW in a year and that is it, then the GDP there is 1 BMW. GDP is not abstract.

3) GDP is the very number that measures pop music produced and buttered popcorn sold. It measures these things in comparable terms (dollars) and if you assume that a free market is at work, this measurement can indicate the level of happiness of a population.




There are a few things wrong with this statement. I have no doubt this is true, but if a government levies high taxes and spends it on 'unproductive' expenses (this is an economic term of art) then that economy is weaker. As a Dane you also benefit from things that are produced in America such as prescription drugs and computer technology that are the result of an economy with less taxes. Higher taxes are worse for a population EVEN if their after tax income levels remain the same.

Then why do the most heavily taxed nations on Earth also have the highest standards of living?

I was just wondering the same thing, moif.

Having lived in Belgium now for almost 3 years, I certainly notice that people are, on average, MUCH better off and seem much more content with what they have than in the U.S. Belgium (and the Netherlands, Luxemburg...and certainly many others) isn't as much of a "consumer" nation...fashion is a big industry here as in many European countries, but Belgians don't usually own, say, a pair of shoes to go with every outfit, 200 DVDs, a TV in each room, luxurious cars (most young folks don't even own cars here as they're apparently to expensive to own for those just starting out with insurance and license fees and all (my husband works with many Belgians and I guess that's what they told him). Americans always want MORE (as a society/culture anyway). I think people are generally more satisfied here because they aren't always thinking of what new gadgets they can buy whenever they get a paycheck.

Belgian taxes (VAT) are I believe 22%...I don't have specifics on tax taken out of paychecks (I'll have to have my husband ask his Belgian co-workers), but I do know that Belgians are fairly well taken care of by the government (in comparison with the U.S. at any rate).

I think it's likely a combination of many things, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if higher taxes (going toward basic human subsistence sort of things like health insurance, etc.) helped increase the standard of living at least a little.

The definition of poverty for an American is very different from the definition of poverty most anywhere else. Our "poor" are comparatively rich to many.

I believe 'social progress' is a very abstract indicator for standard of living. I don't think GDP is perfect by any means, but other forms of measurement seem even less so. I do know that the average Italian doesn't have a better lifestyle than the average American, so if they're number 9, and we're number 27, that study is flawed.

On the other hand, I would probably say there are a few countries out there with better living standards. Lower crime rates, lower stress levels, ect. This could get into a philosophical discussion of one's personal definition of 'rich'. Is a large house a lifestyle boon, or simply a bigger, more elaborate coffin (after all, what's it all for ultimately)? It's all in how you look at it.

Thanks for the link, Amlord. This is extremely interesting.

Looking over the material on this link (and there is a lot of it) it seems to me that this is a very scholarly index, and that the way in which it measures the "social progress" of a nation is quite reasonable. There are a lot of objective numbers factored into the WISP, including the Gross Domestic Product per capita.

I would note also that, although the USA is "only" number 27, it still has a very good WISP. I don't see any indication of any political bias in this study. The nations with very low WISP numbers seem to be those nations, particularly in Africa, suffering from extreme poverty.

Overall, it seems clear that representative forms of government have a huge advantage over authoritarian forms of government in providing their citizens with decent lives. It also seems as if "social democracies" have a slight advantage over "free market democracies" (to use very inaccurate terms.) This may not be as great a factor as some others that are not under government control. It seems to be an advantage, for example, to be a relatively small, prosperous nation. (It also seems to be a disadvantage to be a relatively small, poor nation. Smallness seems to make prosperity better, and poverty worse.) Maybe the main reason that the USA is "only" 27 (nothing to be ashamed of) is the sheer size of the nation, which makes certain problems worse.

There are a few things which are fishy in this study, especially as they apply to the USA.

Here is the explanation of the categories.

Here is the USA's scores over the past 3 decades.

Let's look at one category: Health.

The US's score DROPPED from 19.9 in 1970 to 19.3 in 2000. What measures health?
Life Expectancy
Infant Mortality Rate
Under-5 Mortality Rate
Physicians per 100,000
% of children immunized against DPT
% of population using proved water sources

Which of these indicators is dropping, I wonder?

I guess that means that Americans have horrible judgment because we are obviously not choosing what makes us as happy or comfortable as less "prosperous" nations.

What are we choosing then?

We are choosing what makes us happy in the short term, and that is instant gratification. We buy things instead of spending money on education, health care, and the like. IMO, gross consumerism is what makes us less happy.

Well, it seems to me that the change from 19.9 to 19.3 is relatively trivial; probably within the margin of error, I suspect.

I can't find any exact numbers (someone who is better at research than I am might be able to) but I would not be surprised if the number of physicians per 100,000 persons was down slightly.

I agree but I would also guess that there has been a decrease in the % of children receiving the DPT vax. in response to the mercury/autism scare.

I just moved back to the US a year ago from Europe and my standard of living did decrease but so did the cost of it. My taxes in fact have risen and yet my husband's (he is the wage earner) salary has increased.. by quite a big percentage even.

It is all relative...and I dunno this WISP thing sounds like a measure of socialism to me and I am not surprised to see the US ranked where it is.

Thank you Armlord.

I was walking down the main street in Reykjavik with an American friend of mine, who was here for the first time, (he moved here a few years later) and we walked past a bum, my friend could hardly control himself, and he told me that "I am so relieved you have bums in Iceland too"

Well, I didn't really know how to respond to that, but couldn't help but wonder, was he having inferior complexes over not seeing any bums lying around? Well I never got to the bottom of it and went on with my life.

Victoria;
"Maybe the main reason that the USA is "only" 27 (nothing to be ashamed of) is the sheer size of the nation, which makes certain problems worse."

Yes but still, I read in some book by Chomsky, don't remember which one sorry, that Americans consume 40% of the earths resources, and yet the average standard of living, according to the study isn't higher. I think the fact that you spend about 300 billion dollars pr. year on the army has a lot to do with it. That's my two cent's as it were.

Ikeaboy69

The US is home to large numbers of immigrants. That suppresses our rank in education and life expectancy. Since most immigrants are from the third world and thus didn't have the advantage of our education system or diet growing up. It also makes it much harder to ensure equal rights than in countries that still have a very homogenous ethnic makeup. As for the justice system part the WISP scale doesn't like the US's drug policy or the death penalty. They're entitled to their opinion, but using opinion to calculate their score is inane.

Take all of those into account and the amazing thing is that the US managed to score as high as they did.

Reading through the WISP factors, I can see two areas where the US would particularly lag:

Welfare effort (includes age at which government assumes at least limited responsibilty for old age, pregnancy, sickness, work and non-work related injuries and involuntary job loss) and Culture (largest group which shares the same ethnic or racial group, same religion or same mother tongue).

The Culture thing seems anti-Social Progression, doesn't it? Denmark scored about a 20, since it is homogenous. The US scores about a 10.

As for Welfare, Denmark scored a 29, while the US was under 15.

Those two categories account for the difference between the countries....

You make good points, Amlord.

I'm leery about the "homogenous culture" thing myself. Maybe the thinking of the people who put together this study is that a homegenous culture tends to have a reduction in certain types of problems (racism, etc.)? Certainly, I'd rather have a heterogenous culture with a slight reduction in "quality of life" than a "pure" culture.

The social welfare thing is more controversial, and is an unending debate. Suffice to say that I think that both "social democracies" and "free market democracies" are "good."

Oh boy. There is a lot I want to answer, but I won't in an effort to keep on topic.

My main contention here is that WISP (and indexes like it) is flawed because they require value judgments of things that are difficult to compare. For example, if 1 “physician per 100,000 population” worth 1 point; is 1 “person externally displaced per 100,000 population” worth -1 or -0.5 or -2? It is easy to say “this is good” and “this is bad,” but it is VERY difficult to assign relative magnitudes of 'goodness' and 'badness'.

This study (WISP) although seemingly very academic, has a fatal flaw. It requires the person performing the study to make the judgments of magnitude that I mention above.

Now, as for the argument that American society is one of rampant consumerism and buying things is not the answer to true happiness: this may be, but those issues are not ones that are discussed by hard science. Those type of issues should be left to philosophy. They have no place in a standards of living index that is presented to be scientific.

WISP is basically worthless as a concrete study of standards of living. About the only think it can show is that Sweden is better off than Afghanistan.

The one I noticed was that high defense expenditures counted as a negative.



OK, so what measure would you prefer that's not at least as biased the other way? Measuring standard of living is important, because it's a factor in calculating how efficiently a government serves its constituents (loosely, standard of living per tax dollar) so it's not just something we can say shouldn't even be attempted. How should we measure it, and would the US really rank as high as those who've never lived anywhere else (or not as the natives do) would tell us? I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with the US, but I've been to several places that I'd expect to score higher by any measure that's not inexcusably biased in the US's favor.

Look. This isn't about should the U.S. be number 1 or number 27 or number 168.

We should use ANY OTHER method that does not require value judgments. It's difficult to compare apples to oranges (like WISP does).

1) Studies to compare policy making option should not be broad total standard of living indices. Instead, if, for instance, you are examining the healthcare systems around the world, you should compare life expectancies.

2) If you must have a broad 'everything' index, at least take the judgment call out of assigning value by using currency as a measure. This way, the free market tells you the value placed on each thing.

Example:

Assume a free market economy. A bag of candy costs $1, and a new car costs $30,000, then you can roughly assume that a car has 30,000 times the utility of a bag of candy to the consumer. The market has given you a justifiable basis for valuing a car at 30,000 times a bag of candy in term of the index you are trying to develop.

Now, in a subjective valuation, you would look at 'new cars per 100,000 population per year" and "bags of candy consumed per 100,000 population per year." A system like WISP then says, countries with 0 to 100 bags of candy gets a ranking of 1; countries with 100 - 200 bags of candy get a ranking of 2; the rest get a ranking of 3. Countries with 0 - 50 cars get a 1; countries with 50 - 100 get a 2; the rest get a 3.

So in WISP Country A (300 bags of candy and 0 cars) has the same index as Country B (no candy and 1000 cars). A subjective judgment call has been made.

WISP has made a judgment call. Now, a lot of thought can go into that call, but ultimately, the most accurate measure of how much something is worth to someone is how much they are willing to pay for it in a free market.

Do you realize that your method would reflect inflation as a standard-of-living improvement? Using currency is broken in many ways, not just that but also exchange-rate fluctuations, materials-cost fluctuations, artificial stimuli from stock and commodities speculation, etc. Oh, and tax policies affect prices too. Any real measure of standard of living has to quantify things in terms of the actual goods and services and freedoms, not dollar value. What's the dollar value of your freedom? If you don't assign one, how can you factor it into a materialistic standard-of-living metric?

Yes, judgement calls need to be made. Welcome to the real world, that's the way things work here. As long as the standards are applied uniformly, the results have some meaning - even if they don't exactly match one particular person's tastes and priorities.

Let me ask you this then, since you take about valuing freedom:

How does the freedom of speach in America relate to the freedom of speech in Canada?

Which is more valuable (and my how much) freedome of speach or freedom of religion?

Why should I answer that? You're the one proposing dollar value as the measure, why don't you try applying it to freedom? Why don't you take a stroll across the target range you're trying to set up for me?

The point, before you take us further off topic, is that monetary measures for standard of living don't work because prices and wages fluctuate in ways that have nothing to do with standard of living and because some things don't get measured in dollars even here in the US. Somebody has to make a judgement call. Somebody has to assign a weight, not a dollar value, to freedom. Maybe you'd assign a different weight, but that's just too bad. Do your own study. Run your own surveys, and collect your own statistics. As I've pointed out, standard of living is too important for us to throw up our hands and say it can't be measured, and if you don't like one methodology choose another. Just don't bash someone else's for being biased or subjective when the method you propose is even more so.

This is so wrong I can barely find it in myself to answer your post.

1) We have two possible systems. WISP-type and GDP-type.
2) Each attempts to judge standard of living.

WISP-type requires dozens of statistics, introducing a great deal of uncertainty. Using this data, in the different area, a value is assigned to each nation. Usually these values at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. This assignment process requires the researcher to make judgment calls about the relative values of things like life expectancy, civil liberties, environmental conditions, and personal wealth.

GDP-type assessments look at how much a nation produces relative to its population size. Although these numbers also contain inaccuracies, they are fewer than the dozens of numbers that are required for a WISP-type study. The studies do not explicitly take thing like freedoms and voting rights into account as they are not readily quantifiable. Instead we use our common sense to tell us that women's rights in Afghanistan are behind women's rights in the U.S.

You argue that GDP measurements are subject to price fluctuations and inflation. I agree. However, these movements are the result of capitalistic economic movement and are a reflection of well being.

I’m sorry. I respect opinions. But you are wrong here. A system which requires abstract valuation of socioeconomic facts into a finite (an small) number of categories is so inaccurate as to be completely useless and subject to gross manipulation.

...and so is a system based on pure materialism. No, not even materialism - monetarism. What dollar value do you associate with your freedom of speech? How is your judgment call in providing an answer any better than anyone else's?

The argument between Platypus and campbejm illustrates that NO MEASURE of "quality of life", whether WISP-based or GDP-based has applicability to anyone, unless they happen to buy into the underlying valuations.

If you personally like the things that WISP measures, and agree with the weights it assigns, then the WISP ranking will reflect your preference.

If you feel that dollar-value GDP ranking reflects your personal preferences, than that's a good way to rank countries.

If it were possible to work out a true, accurate ranking, we would probably find that the basis (what was measured and how things were weighed) would be different for every individual person. Way too many things play into "quality of life" or "wellbeing" to ever be accurately put into a formula: weather, closeness to family, access to certain types of culture are just a few that could never be commonly quantified and weighed.

So, if you want to live in a country with a high WISP score, go for it.

If you like GDP better than anything else, good for you!

The only problem anyone here is having is trying to get someone else to buy into their own personal value judgements. It will never happen, nor should we care.

"Double-Blind Study An experiment in which neither the subjects nor the experimenter knows the value of the independent variable."

I have no idea what site you got your definition from, but such in social sciences and related to have a tendency to overlap. As For the ability of a bias not to be understood, it can very easily be understood and controlled, such as the simple fact you are even capable of knowing one exists.

As for GDP not being abstract, it is a term that measures one thing, gross domestic product, it cannot by itself tell you why it goes up or down, but can only show you an up or down. If you want more detail you have to derive more terms or get more in depth with economics. Would a gpd boost at any cost be effective?

As fro the study itself, i can see some variables coming into play on why this debate has taken the turn it has. Each of those nations are smaller then the u.s in population, by quite a bit. How much does the socialist government model make an impact. You just need to define your variables and record everything, you can get past the human element in quantitative studies.

dictionary of psychology terms

My argument is that because GDP is a more solid, more objective measurement, it is more accurate. GDP is measured in dollars, but is not merely a reflection of materialism. I will explain using a simple example:

It is self evident that a nation must produce (GDP) a certain amount to keep its population alive. This hypothetical amount could be calculated on a per capita basis. For this example let's assume that a person needs $10 to survive. Now, let's imagine we had two counties (A and . Both countries have a population of 10 people (and therefore needs at least $100 of GDP). Country A has a GDP per capita of $20 while Country B has a GDP per capita of $15.

Now, I say that regardless of WISP, the people of Country A are better off. And here is why:

You can see that in Country A, 5 of the 10 people working will be providing the minimum needed to survive. That frees up 5 people to do other things. This could be ANYTHING including working for voting rights, protecting freedom, making video games. They will do what ever the population wants them to do as indicated by the aggregate free market. (I mean this in a VERY broad sense. For example if a society offer personal glory for someone who works for voting rights, then perhaps one of those 'extra' workers will work for voting rights).

You can also see that in Country B you need 8 of the 10 people to work to provide the minimum GDP of $10 per person. This only frees up 2 people to do other things.

My point is, that by comparing GDP per capita of different nations, we have a comparison of how much of those populations is freed up do provide goods and services above the minimum level needed to fulfill the basic needs of the population. We have also NOT had to make any value judgments external to the system.

Platapus is correct that there is no value that can be placed on things like freedom. However, GDP is not totally materialistic. It does not completely ignore freedom and other intangibles. It also does not try to assign explicit value to them. What a GDP measurement does do is show a society's ability to dedicate workers to the maintenance of intangibles. Since it is impossible to assign value to personal freedoms, this is as far as you can go and still have a meaningful measurement.

I do not think this is a matter of what I like best. I think that as a catch all measure, GDP per capita really is more meaningful than subjective indexes.

There's a difference between precision and accuracy, and just because GDP can be measured more precisely does not make those measurements more accurate. I've often tried to remind people, on this thread and elsewhere (especially in the school-uniform thread) that striving for precision without accuracy is a waste of time. Similarly, just because a quantity is more "objective" doesn't make it more accurate, and the GDP is not as objective as you seem to think. There are many decisions about what gets included, and how. To pick just one example among many, do proceeds from criminal activity count as part of GDP? Should they? It's a judgement call, reflecting the whims of the observer just as much as any WISP component. GDP is useful as a measure of economic output, but as a measure of standard of living it has many deficiencies - possibly even more than WISP.



Actually, by definition, it is.

Here's a little thought experiment for you. What if we resorted to large-scale forced labor, producing goods for export? What would be the effect on GDP? What would be the effect on standard of living? Can you perhaps name a couple of countries that have pretty much done that, with pretty much those effects on GDP and standard of living? I can, and it's why I don't think GDP is a good measure for this.

I think it is important to recognize the difference between GDP and per capita GDP. The US has not been the leader in per capita GDP for quite some time--although we have moved up the list quite a bit in the last few years. Here is where you can find a current listing (through 2002). Although the US is second, you can see that a very large gap exists between 1 and 2 (Luxembourg is number 1), and that the gap between 2-10 is nowhere near as large. But the point that should be made from this is that the US is not necessarily the wealthiest country, despite the fact that so many of the richest people live here. It would be very interesting to see something like the equivalent of mean GDP, but I can't venture a guess as to how that would be calculated. However, if such a formula could be developed, I think it would give a better indication of quality of life for the average citizen than per capita GDP. It would also be able to factor in many things which make ranking mean income meaningless (tax structures, government social expenditures, etc.)

WISP is a worse measurement than GDP in terms of well being. Precision is irrelevant here, because precision is a term that relates to a repeated test. (Such as measuring the length of a board 3 times.) We are only talking about accuracy here and I apologize if I used the word precision instead of accuracy. More accurately we are trying to derive meaning from these measurements, so I say 'meaningful' is a better word than accuracy, as all these measurements are inaccurate.

Can you really not see that the decisions involved in GDP calculation (such as criminal activity) are not as subject to personal bias as the ones in WISP such as the relative effect of well-being of doctors per 100,000 and refugees per 100,000. The difference is large.

No GDP is not perfect, like I said before, but it has broad meaning. At the most, WISP can be said to have extremely pinpoint meaning. (Like, the relationship of nations based on doctors per 100,000, refugees per 100,000, etc...)

I will rephrase your second quote of me:

GDP, while measured in materialistic terms, can be used to make inferences about non-materialistic conditions of an economy and a nation.

That is more specifically what I mean.

Also, net exports are part of GDP.

GDP = C + I + G + NX (Just so you know).

So I not sure of which so called example countries you're talking about.

Incorrect. What you're talking about is more akin to accuracy than precision, and even then it's not quite right. Precision refers to the size of the measurement units. Here are a couple of examples to clarify:

• If you measure a stick in microns and you're off by 10%, your measurement is precise but not accurate.
  
  
• If you measure the same stick in feet and you're off by 0.1% your measurement is accurate but not precise.
  
  

Got it? Good. GDP is much more precise than WISP. It appears to be much more objective. For various reasons that I've described, though, it's not very accurate as a standard-of-living measurement. Is my standard of living high because I make more money than I would if I lived elsewhere, without regard to the fact that the cost of living here is also higher? If that correlation fails between regions of the country, why does it not also fail - and fail for many other reasons as well - when comparing countries?



It's not that I can't see; it's that I disagree. I would appreciate it if you'd learn that there's a difference, and phrase your queries accordingly.



It certainly does. However, that breadth does not extend to usefulness as a standard-of-living measurement.

I'm curious about your previous statement in an attempt to refute the usage of GDP by citing exports as a problem to the system. What did you mean by that?



GDP can be adjusted just like currencies can be converted and cost-of-living can be indexed by using a basket of goods. As for regional differences, the WISP is subject to those as well, but regional differences are irrelevant when discussing a snapshot measurement of a nation.

The basic problem of valuation persists. You have yet to refute my main argument which is:
1) WISP-type indexes require relative valuation of intangibles.
2) GDP per capita, while not assigning direct value to these intangibles, can be used to draw implications about the ability of a nation to provide intangibles to its people not based a relative valuation of those intangibles.
3) The valuation of intangible is subject to strong bias and therefore subjects WISP-type indexes to manipulation. This factor makes WISP-type indexes more of a reflection of the researcher’s preferences than the well-being of the people being studied.

Because this valuation of intangibles has a great effect on the final result of a WISP-index, I conclude that a GDP per capita measurement is a clearer picture of the well-being of a people.

Any standard where our ranking would improve if we deported all minorities seems pretty suspect to me. And to think I thought diversity was a positive. In fact I have heard it argued as a compelling interest.

Apropos of the debate (which I believe is on-topic) about the validity of GDP as a surrogate for real standard-of-living measurements, I found an article on TomPaine.com called Grossly Distorted Picture addressing exactly that point. Here's the most relevant paragraph:



In short, money != quality of life. Big surprise there.

Just to point something out, even though those credit cards are doled out and people use them irresponsibly, the usage of the funds on those cards increases the industrial production in the U.S. which increases the demand for labor and capital which helps families. This article is weak and only looks at what is behind GDP in a superficial way. And quite frankly GDP was conceived as a barometer of aggregate economic strength unlike what the article says. I mean, the whole definitional concept of GDP is to measure what a country is producing in terms of real value.

Another thing relating to credit abuse in this country. One thing GDP measurement of welfare and most economic theory assumes is that consumers are rational, meaning they are capable of judging their well being and how to increase it. This article basically is attacking this assumption. If this is your argument, then there is a bigger problem that relates to the entire field of economics rather than just the usage of GDP as a barometer for well being.

(Also, it is important to not that not all transfers on money are counted in GDP, only those related to real value. So for instance, transfer payments from the government don’t count, but productive government spending (i.e. roads) does.)