UTOPISM. *** In the long run, nothing else is realistic. *** Welcome to the English language blog of Morten Tønnessen, Professor of philosophy at University of Stavanger's Department of Social Studies.
The Universiti Putra Malaysia has appointed me as a member of the editorial board of their new journal Pertanika Journal of Quality of Life Studies (JQoLS) for the next three years. The journal is published by UPM Press, with Nik Ahmad Sufian Burhan as Editor-in-Chief.
I am currently a member of the editorial board (or similar) of six journals (cf. Brief academic CV).
I have agreed to join the Editorial Board of the Journal of Quality-of-Life Studies (JQoLS) as part of the international advisory panel. The new journal is to be published by UPM Press, which is a university press related to Universiti Putra Malaysia, a public Malaysian university.
Yesterday I presented the paper “Can welfare and environmental concerns be measured in extension of GDP?” (see abstract posted earlier) on behalf of Jan Karlstrøm and myself at the 22nd conference of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS), which was held in Kota Kinabula, on Borneo, in Malaysia, June 26 to 28th. The paper was part of Session 23C, “Beyond GDP: New Understandings and Measures of Progress”. Some 45 people attended the session.
Photo: Sabah International Convention Centre, the ISQOLS 2024 venue.
I arrived in Kota Kinabula, Malaysia, two days ago, to take part in the 22nd annual conference of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, which has the theme "Human Happiness and Wellbeing in an Uncertain World" and is held June 26–28th. This will be the fifth ISQOLS conference in a row I am attending (the 2020 and 2021 conferences were held digitally).
Today I have attended a pre-conference cultural excursion in Sabah, to Kiulu, organised by University Malaysia Sabah with Lingga Eco-Tourism Kiulu.
I have been notified by the organizers of ISQOLS 2024 that the paper "Can welfare and environmental concerns be measured in extension of GDP?", prepared by Jan Karlstrøm and myself, has been accepted for oral presentation at the conference, which will take place in Malaysia June 25-28th. I still have to figure out whether I can get my participation funded.
I have just submitted the abstract below to the organizers of the 2024 conference of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS), which will be held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, June 24-28th.
***
Can welfare and environmental concerns be measured in extension of GDP?
Morten Tønnessen, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger
Jan Karlstrøm, Research assistant, Department of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger
What the purpose of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is as a measure of economic activity has been debated ever since the term was launched and adopted in the 1930s. In this paper we go through the history of the concept of GDP, the criticism GDP has been met with, and proposed alternatives to GDP. Originally, GDP was constructed based on a need for more overview and a better basis for planned government management of the economy during the Depression and the Second World War. In the post-war period, GDP growth became a central political goal in and of itself. Even though from the very beginning it has been pointed out that GDP is not intended as a measure of welfare, GDP growth has constantly been associated with welfare development. Modern criticism of GDP as a measure of the state of the economy and social development has largely addressed the fact that GDP is poorly suited as a measure of welfare and that the target of GDP growth is unfortunate given the environmental consequences of increasing production and consumption. Several alternative measures of welfare development and environmental concerns have been launched, but none of them have succeeded in becoming as central as GDP. The new measure that has gained the most traction, namely the UN's Human Development Index, has incorporated GDP rather than replaced GDP. We look at alternatives for measuring welfare, alternatives that address environmental concerns, and alternatives that address both welfare and environmental concerns and evaluate these critically.
