ABSTRACT
The GDP growth paradigm has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with the rising threats of global social inequality, poverty, and environmental degradation. New thinking around ecosocialism, degrowth, happiness and the wellbeing economy insist on keeping alive the utopian imagination. It seeks to break through the constraints of traditional state-or-market development debates, by searching for ways to subordinate both the state and market to society, in harmony with non-human nature. Pioneering work on alternative development indicators has been done in recent times, the most notable being the Gross National Happiness Index, currently in practice within the small Buddhist mountain state of Bhutan. The happiness/wellbeing perspectives do not have an explicit critique of capitalism, and avoid any mention of ‘socialism’ or ‘ecosocialism’. Is there a Chinese Wall between the Buddha and Marx – or can these perspectives be harmonized, as part of building a broader counter-hegemonic movement?
