Moving away from a GDP-centric prism

ARUN MAIRA

Former Member, Planning Commission

AS a citizen of India, that is Bharat, I was proud to see our Prime Minister introduce the heads of powerful states, one by one, to our President and show them the magnificent backdrop of the Nalanda University, the world’s first centre of universal knowledge, established in 427 CE, 1500 years before Bologna University, the first European university, was founded in 1088.

The time has come for powerful people in the world to humbly learn from the rest and change their ways.

The great achievement of India’s G20 presidency has been to remind the grouping of the purpose for which it was created in 1999 (and held its first summit in 2008) — to stabilise the global economy, which had been shaken by the financial crisis in the G7 countries, and extend the benefits of economic growth to other nations equitably. The G7 hijacked the G20 summit in Indonesia in 2022 amid the Ukraine war and made it another platform to settle scores with Russia. This year, the US’s war of sanctions and its military alliances against China cast another long shadow over the G20. However, India, with the support of Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa — four ‘Southern’ nations leading the G20 four years in a row (2022-25) — held firm. The G7, where only 10 per cent of the world’s people live, must not hijack the G20 for its geopolitical purposes, they declared. It must be a forum for global development, even as India was able to get the African Union added as the G20’s 21st member.

However, the Prime Minister had set the aspirations of India’s G20 presidency much higher than to just bring it back on track. The theme of India’s presidency, publicised in cities around the country, where hundreds of meetings were held in the run-up to the summit in New Delhi on September 9-10, was Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, translated as ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’. This was a paradigm shift from the purpose of the G20, whose vision of globalisation is ‘One Earth, One Economy, One Future’. In line with this, the Prime Minister appealed to leaders on the eve of the summit in New Delhi for a “shift away from a GDP-centric view of the world to a human-centric view”. Sadly, other than expressions of pious hopes and intentions in the declaration, the GDP-centric view has prevailed in effect.

The economic and social costs of a narrow focus on economies are very visible. The G20 declaration admits that “at the midway point to 2030, the global progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is off-track, with only 12 per cent of the targets on track”. The private business sector and financial institutions are powerful actors in the GDP paradigm and they measure their own performance in terms of monetary profits and revenues. When the GDP is the overall measure of a country’s development, the business and financial sectors’ views on public policy will prevail. Thereby, they obtain concessions to increase their revenues and profits to boost overall economic growth. Paradigms are hard to change from within. Champions of voluntary change in the financial sector, such as Larry Fink of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, who stuck his neck out too far for the sector’s liking to promote ESG (environmental, social and governance) integration, are brought down to the ground by their own sector.

Business and financial sectors have the resources to influence the global policy agenda. The B20 advertised its support of the G20 with four-page advertisements in India’s national papers. The L20, which represents the needs of the working people, has been barely visible in comparison. Civil society organisations were distributed across many other ‘20s’, for renewable energy, health, education, etc. Here too, the business and financial sectors were well represented. Sadly, the worth of a dollar invested in education, health and other social sectors is also measured by how much it will increase the GDP in the long run. All for the GDP: then who or what is there for humanity?

The G7 and G20 were set up to solve global financial and economic problems. In this vision, social institutions are deformed to increase economic growth. Women’s work at home is not valued in the economy. Women are plucked out of their families and trained to work in industrial establishments to contribute to the GDP. ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ requires a paradigm shift in the concept of well-being of humans. To realise this vision, family values must be nurtured more in so-called ‘social enterprises’ than their financial valuations in stock markets and contributions to the economy.

A paradigm change requires a power shift, which is always difficult because people with power will not let go. Money gives power; political authority gives power; and formal knowledge gives power too. In fact, this is the basis of a caste system of power in all societies. Those with the power of money, authority and formal higher education are the upper castes in the power hierarchy. They form coalitions among themselves, ostensibly to make life better for the common people who, they say, cannot govern themselves and must be governed by others.

“We cannot solve complex systemic problems with the same ways of thinking that have caused them,” Albert Einstein said. A paradigm shift is necessary in global systems of expertise. It is time for the powers to humbly listen to the people and learn from them, rather than teaching them ways that have led humanity to problems of environmental degradation and economic inequities that must be solved urgently in the next few years.

A paradigm shift is required in Western-dominated systems of knowledge and expertise. Ancient wisdom can teach the modern world a lot about ethics and sustainable living. Women are a half of humanity: their views must not be overpowered by masculine ways of thinking. The knowledge within the informal sector, in which the majority earn their livelihoods exercising least pressure on the earth, must be respected by experts in the formal sector. The time has come for powerful people in the world to humbly learn from the rest and change their ways.

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