What is Gross National Happiness?

http://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/what-is-gnh/

Here is a thorough account of the governing principle of policy in Bhutan, When people are aware at all of Bhutan, it is most often because of media attention to this group of policies. No one is professing that Bhutan is the happiest of countries. It is, in fact, among the poorest countries in the world, and as it transitions toward development with the influences of global finance, commerce, industry, trade and climate change, it’s traditional culture and close ties to the environment face many challenges.

Bhutan’s ancient legal code of 1629 stated “if government cannot create happiness for it’s people, there is no reason for government to exist.” What a novel idea. In the early 1970’s the Fourth King of Bhutan, a monarch still in his teens, resolved to develop and reify in it’s legislative code the concept of Gross National Happiness as the guiding principle of all legislative decisions. The referenced link is provides a fascinating account of the outcome of this process.