As we
conclude our last week’s curriculum we will discuss “The Future of Social
Innovation and Enterprise.” I would like to engage in a discussion related to
this week’s theme by guiding my assessments and predictions of the future of
social innovation through a focused discussion on measuring a country’s social
progress. Ariel Schwartz, writes an article titled, “Forget GDP: The Social
Progress Index Measures National Well-Being,” which presents a challenge to GDP
as a sufficient measuring tool to evaluate a country’s well-being and social
progress. Schwartz suggests a new, innovative measurement tool called the
Social Progress Index to supplement, or replace, GDP measurement tools.
Overall,
the Social Progress Index measures a country’s social and environmental
outcomes directly, and measures each outcome’s subcomponents, and specific
outcomes of those subcomponents. For example, “health and wellness” is
considered a subcomponent of an environmental outcome, and a specific outcome
of “health and wellness,” is measured by “life expectancy, obesity, cancer
death rate, or other factors.” A country’s composite score that takes into
account the main outcomes of society and the environment, and provides a
comprehensive assessment of the country’s overall well-being and social
progress.
I am
intrigued by supplementing GDP with the Social Progress Index; research
supports the notion that GDP is limited in its ability to fully quantify and
evaluate the idiosyncrasies in the outcomes of society (e.g., societal or
environmental). I look forward to continued innovation in the creation of
measurement tools that more comprehensively and deeply evaluate factors in a
country that impact the country’s growth, well-being, development, and overall
progress.
As
someone with a background in psychology and neuroscience, I look forward to
measurement tools that capture societal progress and impact by additionally including
individuals’ cognitive and neurological development. GDP and Social Progress
Indexes are rudimentary measurement tools that fall short of providing the
deepest and most comprehensive measurement of human development and progress in
comparison to a tool that also evaluates an individual’s cognitive and neurological
development.
Both
cognitive and neurological developments are at the core of what defines
humanity and its developmental progress. In other words, economic growth,
growth in basic needs, opportunity growth, physiological well being, and
others, are indicative of the overall progress or well being of a country and
its residents because these measured outcomes indicate a more efficient
framework that facilities a greater capacity for any particular individual to
develop cognitively and neurologically.
In a more
ideal society in which GDP is “through the roof,” any particular individual is
economically satisfied, physiologically healthy, has all basic needs satisfied,
has access to every opportunity, will this individual seize to develop and
progress? Of course not. In this case, the previously mentioned outcomes lay a
framework for this individual to continue developing; where all that is left to
develop is the individual’s cognitive and neurological capacities; thus the
penultimate stages of human development. I’d say measuring these outcomes would
be the future of social innovation.
What
do you think?