Yes

by robertsloan2

Created on: November 08, 2007

A country's progress cannot just be measured in its GDP, because wealth can be concentrated in the hands of a few while the country as a whole is deep in poverty. Many times throughout history, a few in the government or supported by the government wind up taking enormous profits, while destroying the country's people and even the land with short-sighted tyranny. Whether it's capitalist investors who reap the profits or socialist party officials, the net result is the same: it can't be called progress if it ruins the land and the people.

Quality of life indicators must also include the health of the land. Is the country's way of life sustainable? Will there be space, food, clean water for the next generation, or are the country's practices destroying future resources?

Ironically, in the 21st century, some unindustrialized nations are ahead by bringing in new greener technologies. Cables and telephone lines don't need to be laid and thus don't disrupt the environment if the phone system's on a cellular network, just as an example. Power plants can be designed to use natural sources like wind or geothermal to begin with, reducing the waste going into the water and air. These things can make a profound difference to quality of life. They are not just the province of environmentalist activists, they boil down to the practical common sense decisions that made some civilizations rise to prominence while others fell apart under the effects of their own refuse.

Rome's greatness, among many things, rested on aqueducts and sewer systems, on sanitation and water supplies to sustain its cities and roads well-maintained to connect the far-flung parts of the Empire. So why would a country that's turning enormous profits but letting its infrastructure fall to ruin be seen as progressive? The only progress there is the profits of the people on the back end, and their descendants will reap the same problems as the people whose lives are distorted in their time.

Health care is a basic measure of a country's progress. How are the elderly, the young, the disabled and the sick treated? The levels of infant and maternal mortality are an important indicator that America seems to have forgotten, because the US has been sinking in relation to other first world nations in that regard. I don't call that progress. It's not about whether the very rich turn a greater profit. It's about the chances an infant or its mother has of surviving the birth that tells me whether a society has made progress or not.

These are basic common sense things. Any human being is aware that people need good housing, decent food, clean water, medical care, good working conditions. While people's religions and philosophies vary immensely, down at the level of basic human needs, we all share the same ones. When we're sick, we need medical care. When we're old and can't work we need to be treated with dignity and able to live comfortably till death.

Beyond those basic needs, a measure of progress in a society would be its advances in the sciences and the arts. Is it healthy enough to create a Renaissance? Is there new research and innovation? Are the arts flourishing and are people innovating in the arts? Or are the arts and sciences limited to a superstar few who were lucky enough to get enough prominence to practice them as professions?

Education is another measure of progress. How successful is the country's education programs? Are there serious gaps? What is its literacy rate? Where are its philosophers and thinkers, where are the scholars who can learn from the past and gather new knowledge about the world? Are universities accessible to average citizens, or are they limited to the elite few? How well do those universities rate in comparison with those in other countries?

What do a country's working conditions look like? Are people working full time and still lacking basic necessities of life? Are people working long hours with few or no vacations? Are people by and large happy at work? This is a subtle one, but when unemployment is high it's more of a survival priority for people to take whatever work they can get. Sustainably, in the long term, it's important that more people find work that's meaningful to them and get to do it in safe healthy conditions with reasonably good pay and hours, and time off to pursue all of the other aspects of life that human beings need - spirituality, family, friendships, arts and interests, hobbies.

Throughout the history of the arts and sciences, great men and women have risen out of obscurity because they were inspired amateurs spending their free time on a personal project they had a passion for. Sometimes they became full time artists or scientists on getting successful, sometimes not, but when a society is healthy enough that most people have the time and resources to pursue avocations, that society will gain tremendous rewards from the work people do from their hearts for no other reason than that they love it.

Great art, music, writing, poetry, philosophy and spirituality are all things that go by the wayside if the GDP is the only measure of progress. That measure of progress also leads to destructive patterns that may take decades to complete themselves but utterly ruin the society that "progresses" down that road. Many civilizations have fallen on simple things like sewerage and trash and disease, widespread poverty and massive revolts against economic oppression. To judge a society only by its GDP is to look past the source of any of its problems and cheerfully go into denial about anything that makes that society worthwhile either for the people who have to live in it or for those that come after.

Progress in human rights is so important that I end this essay on the topic. One or two hundred years ago, slavery was taken for granted by most of humanity as a natural risk in the world. It wasn't even really questioned. It's crime. Redefining it as crime, even when it sometimes still happens, is a tremendous leap of progress. The idea that torture could follow slavery into the list of historical horrors is something a society could truly take pride in being able to claim it. Discrimination, bigotry, racism, homophobia and sexism are also on the wane philosophically, it is real progress when any nation manages to stop or reduce the oppression of any group of people simply for who they are.

These things are the goals that people work towards. To say something is "progress" implies that there is a goal to the journey, and these things are the goals that real people have. A society is made up of people and it exists for the people, many societies will come out and say "we are of and for the people." But if the people aren't getting dignity and life and health, if their lives and desires are crushed by society, then it's failed. A criminal can gain a great profit, but does that make the criminal progressive? Only tangible positive results for the people in that society can be termed real progress.

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