We should learn from consequences instead of metrics. From our childhood, we have been trained by school to chase good marks, learn “skills,” get a job, do what the boss says, and follow company incentives.
But we rarely understand the real consequences and lived experiences. We believe that simply following these metrics will lead to social good. In reality, it often does not. Many times, these institutions render children useless to society and distort their worldviews.
They make people just useful enough for companies to exploit them, rather than truly enabling them to contribute to society.
We fixate on GDP, how many jobs were created, how much investment arrived, how many development projects or buildings appeared in an area, how much real estate prices are rising—and we call this “development.” These metrics are warped around how rich and corporations, not how well people are doing.
We measure success by status: salary level, properties owned, the prestige of the company someone works for. Going abroad is seen as a major status enhancement.
We have lost the ability to see with our own eyes how much people are suffering because of these priorities—how much money flows out to pay foreign debts and foreign companies.
We fail to notice how, in order to service those debts, governments cut basic social services and sell them off to investors.
We overlook the exploitation of labor, chronic overwork, and relentless price hikes. We only see stock market prices going up and celebrate, while ignoring how many people can no longer afford basic needs—housing, education, and medicine. We call this “free markets” and “competition.”
Instead, we must view the world through a different lens: people’s well-being should be the central metric. Rather than GDP, we should prioritize the Human Development Index, people’s happiness, and their freedom to live as they choose.
We should understand 300 people in the world, controlling overall capital of the world and it resources. We have to see that’s why based on social good rather than how much ownership he has is the sole metric of the status.
That’s why should change this system and tax wealthy and tax based on ownership (for example, 1–2% annually). If not, there should at least be real competition over who can acquire assets. That would allocate resources more justly, reduce the tyranny of property and concentrated ownership. Then these money would be used for social services.
Instead of judging people primarily by their job title, role, or company, we should evaluate them based on their genuine contribution and their merit.
Contribution should not be measured by how much profit they generated for their company, but by how much real social good they created. That should be the metric.