Forum Post: Measuring Success

Did anyone catch David Rothkopf’s article in the NY Times Sunday Review yesterday? It made me think of a way Occupy Wall Street could expand our collective influence and impact.

Rothkopf describes how indicators like the GDP, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ have kept policy makers and the media focused on the interests of big business and the financial sector, contributing to the inequities in income and wealth that we are protesting and demonstrating about. He proposes measuring happiness instead, but although that sounds like a good idea, I don’t think it would solve the problem. A number of times over the last year I’ve heard people justify their extreme wealth by pointing out that income and happiness are not closely correlated. In their eyes, it’s fine for them to be rich since poorer people are happier!

Policies won’t change unless we adopt national, state, and local performance measures that reflect the aspirations of the 99%. Some other countries are looking to experts to identify these indicators, but while experts may be helpful with the metrics, what needs to be measured can only be identified by the people involved. We, the 99%, are the only ones who know what we are striving for, what our “well-being” looks like and means. Is anyone interested in starting an on-line forum for capturing these grassroots ideas?