How good is life? Is the US the best country in the world?

The norm in the capitalism  is to judge the strength and health of an economy on how many goods are produced every year. This is known as the gross domestic product index. (GDP) This is a false and capitalist way of looking at things. For example the GDP includes the production of weapons of mass destruction, that is the production of scrap metal which can be used to kill hundreds of millions and nerve gas and napalm. This is ridiculous. This is destructive of life and should be no base for economic health. It is a waste of resources rather than a contribution to economic health. 

There is now a move afoot to produce a "happiness" index that would be produced and announced and replace the GDP. This is being headed by Joseph Stiglitz the Nobel prize winning economist. This would assess economic health based not just  on the amount of goods and services produced but also the amount of holidays people received, their access to health care and education, full or not full employment, the length of the working week,  what people consumed. Any rational system would measure its health in this way. 

Of course in the US this would be a catastrophe for the powers that be. If access to health care, vacation time, access to education, the length of the work week and the pace of work, the insecurity of life, if these were part of judging the health of a society the US would be at the bottom of the list. It would no longer be the "best country in the world" as many people who have never been to another country are conned into believing, instead it would be a country more dominated by the corporations than any other and where the working class are more repressed and lied to and alienated than any other. 

Yes for a happiness index to replace the GDP. Included in it would also of course have to be the amount of "Craic" we would all have. This is an Irish expression meaning time to hang out and tell each other lies and exagerated versions of our exploits. Like the time I made a ...........No I will leave that for another time.