Gross National Happiness in Bhutan

For my God's Gracious Kingdom class I am doing a project with a girl on Bhutanese refugees in St. Louis. Looking on the International Organization for Migration website, I learned this:

"When I received the invitation to work on this film, I had never even heard of Bhutan. I was completely unaware of its reputation as an idyllic Buddhist utopia, the elusive "Shangri-la," a country that – in defiance of the global status quo – measures the success of its economy with the metric of Gross National Happiness rather than Gross National Product."

Gross National Happiness? Here's how they measured it (via wiki):

Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution

Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic

Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses

Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients

Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits

Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates

Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

I like the idea that a country can look at more than capitalistic markers for success for their country. However, like many idealistic methods of governance, focusing on "Gross National Happiness" isn't really helping the thousands of Bhutanese refugees living in camps around the country. Oh well, good idea anyways.