Is it the one with the best food?

是有最美味食物的地方嗎？

The longest life expectancy?

還是要最長壽？

The best weather?

要有最好的天氣？

For the past 70 years, most governments have relied heavily on a single number to answer that question.

過去 70 年以來，多數政府都重度依賴一個單一數字來回答那個問題。

This number influences elections, the stock market, and government policy.

這個數字影響了選舉、股市以及政府政策。

But it was never intended for its current purpose, and some would argue that the world is addicted to making it grow forever.

但它原始意圖並非為了現在的目的，有些人也會爭辯世界沈迷於讓它永遠地成長。

This number is called the "gross domestic product", or GDP, and it was invented by the economist Simon Kuznets in the 1930s to try and gauge the size of an economy in a single, easy-to-understand number.

這個數字被稱為「國內生產總值」（GDP），它是在 1930 年代由經濟學家 Simon Kuznets 所發明，目的在於試圖以單一、易懂的數字測量經濟規模。

GDP is the total monetary value of everything a country produces and sells on the market.

GDP 是一個國家生產並在市場銷售所有物品的總貨幣價值。

To this day, GDP per capita, which is just the total GDP divided by the number of people living in that country, is widely seen as a measure of well-being.

直至今日，人均 GDP，亦即該國家總 GDP 除以所有居民數量的數值，被廣泛視為福祉的衡量指數。

But GDP doesn't actually say anything direct about well-being because it doesn't take into account what a country produces or who has access to it.

但 GDP 其實並未直接說明福祉的任何事，因為它未考量一個國家的生產物或是誰可以取得產品。

A million dollars of weapons contributes the exact same amount to a country's GDP as a million dollars of vaccines or food.

價值一百萬美元武器對國家 GDP 的貢獻量與一百萬美元價值的疫苗或食物一樣。

The value society derives from things like public school or firefighters isn't counted in GDP at all because those services aren't sold on the market.

社會從公立學校或是消防員身上獲取的價值完全未計算在 GDP 中，因為那些服務並未在市場上銷售。

And if a country has a lot of wealth but most of it is controlled by relatively few people, GDP per capita gives a distorted picture of how much money a typical person has.

而如果一個國家很富有，但多數都由相對少數人掌控，人均 GDP 對於一般人所擁有的財富呈現扭曲的樣貌。

Despite all that, for a long time, higher GDP did correlate closely to a higher quality of life for people in many countries.

儘管如此，對於許多國家人而言，較高的 GDP 有很長一段時間都與較高的生活品質息息相關。

From 1945 to 1970, as GDP doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in some western economies, people's wages often grew proportionally.

從 1945 年到 1970 年，隨著 GDP 在某些西方經濟體系以雙倍、三倍，甚或四倍成長，人民的薪資通常也比例成長。

By the 1980s, this changed.

到了 1980 年代，這出現了變化。

Countries continued to grow richer, but wages stopped keeping pace with the GDP growth⏤or in some cases, even declined⏤and most of the benefits went to an ever-smaller percentage of the population.

國家持續變得更富有，但薪資不再隨著 GDP 成長而增加，有些狀況中甚至出現了降低現象，而多數的收益則流向佔比逐漸縮小的一群人身上。

Still, the idea of capturing a nation's well-being in a single number had powerful appeal.

儘管如此，用一個單一數字掌握一個國家福祉狀況的想法非常吸引人。

In 1972, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan came up with the idea of "Gross National Happiness" as an alternative to gross domestic product.

1972 年時，不丹國王吉格梅·辛格·旺楚克提出了「國民幸福總值」的想法，作為國內生產總值的替代方案。

Gross national happiness is a metric that factors in matters like health, education, strong communities, and living standards, having citizens answer questions like,

國民幸福總值是一個將健康、教育、強大社區以及生活水準納入考量的指數，並讓公民回答諸如下列的問題：

"How happy do you think your family members are at the moment?"

「你覺得你的家庭成員此刻有多快樂？」

"What is your knowledge of names of plants and wild animals in your area?"

「你對於居住區域中植物與野生動物名稱有什麼認識？」

And "What type of day was yesterday?”

以及「昨天是什麼樣的日子？」

The United Nations' Human Development Index is a more widely used metric;

歐盟的「人類發展指數」是更廣為使用的指標。

it takes into account health and education as well as income per capita to estimate overall well-being.

它考量了健康與教育以及人均收數以估計整體福祉。

Meanwhile, a metric called the Sustainable Development Index factors in both well-being and the environmental burdens of economic growth, again, boiling all this down to a single number.

同時，一個稱為「永續發展指數」的指摽衡量了福祉以及經濟成長帶來的環境衝擊，再次將這一切歸結為一個數字。

Though no country has been able to meet the basic needs of its people while also using resources fully sustainably, Costa Rica currently comes the closest.

雖然還沒有任何一個國家能夠在滿足國民基本需求的同時完全永續地運用資源，哥斯大黎加目前最接近。

Over the past few decades, it's managed to grow its economy and improve living standards substantially without drastically increasing its emissions.

在過去數十年以來，它成功地在不大幅增加碳排放量的狀況下，促使經濟成長並大體改善生活品質。

Other countries, like Colombia and Jordan, have made notable progress.

其它國家，如哥倫比亞和約旦，也都有顯著進展。

Costa Rica now has better well-being outcomes like life expectancy than some of the world's richest countries.

哥斯大黎加現今在如平均壽命等福祉指數比世界上一些最富裕的國家還要好。

Ultimately, there are limits to any approach that boils the quality of life in a country down to a single number.

追根究底來說，任何將一個國家的生活品質歸結為一個數字的方法都會有其限制。

Increasingly, experts favor a dashboard approach that lays out all the factors a single number obscures.

專家們越來越偏好以儀表板形式將單一數字遮蔽的所有因素全部呈現。

This approach makes even more sense given that people have different priorities, and the answer to which country is best to live in depends on who's asking the question.

這個方式更為合理，因為人們有不同的優先考量，而「哪個國家最適合居住」這個問題的答案取決於發問者身份。

So, what if that were you designing your countries well-being metric?

那麼如果換成是你設計你居住國家的福祉指數，你會怎麼做？

What do you value, and what would you measure?

你重視什麼、會衡量什麼？

To explore when and how more can become less, watch this video.

要了解「多即是少」會在何時以及如何發生，請觀看這部影片。

Or, head to the World Economic Forum's YouTube channel for expert interviews on economics and current events.

或是前往世界經濟論壇的 YouTube 頻道，觀看專家對於經濟與時事的訪談。