The novel I am currently reading is Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry of the Future. (It is worth noting that Robinson lives in the awesome college town I grew up in.) In it he describes the problems with GDP as a measurement tool and mentions some alternative ways to measure how well a society (not just an economy) are doing overall. I found this relevant because GDP is something that always comes in my classes and it obviously has it’s flaws.

Here are some alternatives to GDP.

Genuine Progress Indicator Unlike GDP, which counts all spending as positive regardless of its purpose, the GPI subtracts costs associated with pollution, crime, and resource depletion while adding the value of volunteer work, housework, and education. The index was developed in the 1990s and aims to provide a more holistic view of progress by measuring whether economic growth actually improves quality of life rather than simply increasing total economic activity.

United Nations Human Development Index This index, created by the United Nations in 1990, combines life expectancy, education levels, and income to provide a broader view of human progress. Countries are ranked from 0 to 1, with scores above 0.8 considered “very high human development,” and the index has become one of the most widely used alternatives to GDP for comparing national development levels.

Happy Planet Index
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is a measure of sustainable well-being that evaluates countries based on how efficiently they deliver long and happy lives for their residents within the planet’s environmental limits. Developed by the New Economics Foundation, the HPI combines life satisfaction, life expectancy, and ecological footprint data to calculate how much happiness and longevity a country achieves per unit of environmental impact. Wealthy nations often score poorly on this index.

Social Progress Index This index measures a country’s social and environmental progress independently of economic factors by evaluating three main categories: basic human needs (nutrition, medical care, shelter, safety), foundations of wellbeing (access to knowledge, information, health, and environmental quality), and opportunity (personal rights, freedom of choice, tolerance, and access to higher education). Initially published in 2013, the SPI deliberately excludes economic indicators to provide a clearer picture of how well societies meet their citizens' fundamental needs and create conditions for human flourishing.

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness I’d heard of this one already. Introduced by Bhutan’s Fourth King in the 1970s and formalized into a measurable index in 2008, GNH evaluates progress across nine domains including psychological wellbeing, health, education, ecological diversity, time use, and community vitality. This approach has guided Bhutan’s policy decisions for decades, leading to constitutional requirements for environmental conservation and making Bhutan one of the few carbon-negative countries in the world.