MANILA, Philippines – As early as 40 years ago when I used to teach introductory courses in economics at De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines, I already pointed out to my students that GDP measurements may actually hide the harmful effects of income growth on the welfare of human beings.

The example I gave had a lot to do with happiness within the family since all surveys show that the greatest happiness of the Filipino comes from the affection and love he gets from the family. There can be a rapid rise in GDP as more and more mothers abandon the home to look for remunerative work, relegating the care of the children to hired household helpers. Since the work of mothers and other family members at home is not given any commercial value, it does not get into GDP measurements. Once the mother works outside the home and receives a salary or earns entrepreneurial income, there is a big rise in GDP. The salary given to the household helper, whose quality of work and the satisfaction given to the children may be inferior, is also given a monetary value and gets included in GDP, adding even more to GDP.

It is possible, though, that the level of happiness of the children and even that of the mother could very well have gone down. This problem is even more acute in the case of mothers who work overseas. A large increase in our GNP (GNP, unlike GDP, includes incomes earned by Filipinos abroad) is due to remittances of our OFWs, a good number of them mothers leaving their children behind. Such growth of GNP may actually be accompanied by a significant decline in the happiness of many children and of the mothers themselves.

What can we conclude from all these considerations? Should we throw the "baby" of GDP growth with the "bath water" of inadequacies of income and cost measurements? The answer is found in the following passages of an article by Arthur Brooks: "Money may not buy happiness, but there is one important way in which money and happiness are related: At any given moment, richer individuals within a country tend to be happier than poorer folks. In 2004, Americans earning more than $75,000 per year were more than twice as likely to say they were very happy than those earning less than $25,000. One study found that when happiness was measured on a 1 to 3 scale (where 3 was happiest), Americans in the bottom 10 percent of earners in the mid-1990s had an average happiness score of 1.94; those in the middle of the income distribution had a score of 2.19; and those in the top 10 percent scored 2.36."

What about comparing rich countries with poor countries? Are rich countries happier than poor ones? Mr. Brooks cited data pertaining to the African continent: "People in poor countries where much of the population lives below subsistence level are much unhappier than people in rich countries on average. International comparative studies of happiness consistently place the poorest nations of the world — especially the countries of sub-Saharan Africa — at the very bottom... In 2001, one study ranking countries in terms of happiness found that Zimbabwe and Burundi were the unhappiest places on earth. And this makes sense of course: It is ridiculous to imagine that illiteracy, high child mortality, and the threat of starvation are any more pleasant or bearable to a Burundian than they would be to an American. But once countries get past the prosperity level that solves large-scale health and nutrition problems, income disparity pales in comparison with other factors in predicting happiness, such as culture and faith."

Culture and faith bring us to deep philosophical issues. It is clear that the question of human happiness cannot be answered completely without bringing in the speculative sciences of philosophy and theology. One of the most recent books on human happiness was published by the Yale University Press. Authored by Sissela Bok, the long essay is entitled "Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science." Bok, who is a moral philosopher, gives a great deal of importance to the relationship between happiness and virtue, which was the teaching of the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle. According to Aristotle, a happy life is one lived well, and that means being virtuous. It implies that people cannot know they are happy without knowing the difference between right and wrong. Happiness is the reward of virtue, especially the virtue of generosity or, in Christian terminology, charity. Seeking the good of others, contributing to the common good, volunteering or joining in community activities enhance one's happiness besides promoting the general welfare.

The Greek philosophers, i.e., Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, were the first ones to systematically analyze human love, which is the root of human happiness. There is the love of attraction or eros by which the human will is attracted to an object that gives pleasure, whether physical or non-physical. One can love ice cream, a beautiful sunset, a painting of Amorsolo, a song by Charice, a soccer game, or a pretty face. All these pleasurable things or persons are good in the sense that they came from the hands of the Creator of the world. There is nothing evil, except sin, on this planet.

Therefore, the first source of human happiness is the enjoyment within measure or moderation of all that give pleasure. The highest source of human pleasure — the marital act — was put there by God for the perpetuation of the human species. To use it outside of marriage or to artificially prevent reproduction is to go against the will of the Creator and is, therefore, evil. But all legitimate sources of human satisfaction, obtained in accordance with God's will, belong to the first level of happiness — the one that is explored by surveys asking respondents if they are happy. That is why we can say that money can buy happiness because many of the material things that give us satisfaction, e.g., food, movies, travel, etc., cannot be obtained without money.

Then there is the love of friendship called philia by the Greek philosophers. This is what explains how very destitute people, who cannot afford even the most basic goods that give satisfaction, can still consider themselves happy if they enjoy the love of friends, especially the immediate members of their family. Friendship is seeking the good of another human being on the basis of mutual interests and esteem. In societies like the Philippines where families are still generally intact and where people still value the importance of life-long friends, the level of human happiness is higher than more economically developed countries where the rate of divorce is very high and where people live egoistic lives, where human affection has practically disappeared.

Despite its relative underdevelopment in economic terms, the Philippines is ranked high in indices of human happiness because we still value very highly both family and friendship. This, of course, does not mean we should not strive to eradicate mass poverty since living without the means to attain a level of minimum of comfort and decency makes it very difficult for people to live a virtues life. St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers in the Western world, said categorically that a hungry person cannot even begin to think of virtue.

As we conclude then that happiness can come from the enjoyment of pleasures derived from material things. Helping the poor to attain a minimum level of material welfare can make them happy. At the next level of human happiness is that derived from friendship with other human beings, especially with the immediate members of one’s family. These sources of human happiness, however, cannot give complete earthly happiness. Only by learning how to love unselfishly can a person attain the highest level of human happiness on earth. For comments, my e-mail address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.