Gross National Happiness by Morten Sondergaard

The idea of happiness as a guiding principle for government reaches back for centuries in
Bhutan. The 1729 legal code of Bhutan states: “The purpose of the government is to provide happiness
to its people. If it cannot provide happiness, there is no reason for the government to exist.” because its
they say that when people are not happy with what their doing or job the economy will decrease in that
particular place. During the mid-1970s, Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck first introduced gross
national happiness (GNH), and said that gross domestic product (GDP) is less important because it could
not deliver happiness and well-being. Gross National Happiness policies take into account equality,
family integrity, health, gender equity, and satisfying jobs, among other things. The policy envisions a
person to be bonded deeply to a safe and supportive community in which trustworthiness of the people
is high, and fear of victimization by other human beings is ideally nonexistent. The community
envisioned in Gross National Happiness is set deeply in nurturing ecology, just as an individual is deeply
bonded to a community. Gross National Happiness also includes specific indicators. In the area of health,
it envisions a person to have over 26 healthy days a month, have high self-reported health, and not
suffer from serious deprivations because of disabilities.In Bhutan, the policy of Gross National Happiness
has created new norms of official decision making and new institutions, and has helped the country
strike a balance between modernity and tradition. In Bhutan, the policy of Gross National Happiness has
created new norms of official decision making and new institutions, and has helped the country strike a
balance between modernity and tradition.