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Focus: The Argument between Quality vs. Quantity
Liz Pattison
While the welfare of a nation is usually quantified; valued in terms of economic standing
and judged as a first, second, or third world country solely upon its gross domestic product, it is
hard for me to accept this method of measurement as an accurate portrayal of a country’s status
and livelihood. While it may be difficult to measure a country’s success any other way other than
in an economy-based fashion, having lived with the Karen now for what is close to three weeks,
I feel that if nothing else, an attempt should be made in order to appraise a nation’s value in a
way that reflects economic and social well-being. V Shiva How would argue in agreement,
stating that “as long as people are working in their homes, they’re not contributing to growth.
(And yet) the moment they become slaves of others, they suddenly (are said to be) contributing.”
It seems that in several ways, the way in which a nation’s status has come to be measured has
been narrowed and restricted to its contribution to the global economy, in comparison to other
nations across the globe… essentially its value as ascribed by the omnipotent dollar bill (or baht).
However what then are we discarding, if ‘value’ is so minimally described? From what I have
witnessed within the Karen villages, I would answer: anything that cannot be marked or made
manifest by tangible capital (a.k.a., money).
I’ve seen Karen men and women cut down banana trees and use every part of their
structure for practical use. Before the tree is cut, the bananas and banana flowers are taken for
food. Afterward, the stalk of the tree is cut and boiled for pig slop and the leaves separated and
used as wrappers (as for food). Instead of buying processed foods coming from distant states in
grocery stores, packaged in layers of petroleum products and then carried home in plastic bags as
well, the Karen use their local resources, taking advantage of sustainable subsistence while
maintaining the integrity of their environment. I’ve seen them use bamboo shoots to make
drinking cups, thinking games, floorboards, walls, brooms, and baskets, trail guardrails, and
make-shift nails. I’ve seen them use fan leaves for roofing, cotton and natural dyes to weave and
color their own clothes, and burned wood for pathways and drying racks throughout the rice
fields. In essentially every way, their livelihood is self-sufficient and “valuable,” if allowed
looser connotations set aside from economic principles.
And yet, due to their GDP, when weighed against other nations, Thailand is considered to
be an “underdeveloped nation,” and Thai – and even more so, Karen – people considered poor.
While the economic piece does fit into the overall fabric of a nations sewn vitality, because the
Karen are able to produce and consume the necessary materials and resources they need to
maintain their livelihood without participating in the commercial market, their ‘worth’ as an
independent nation is largely unrecognized on a macro-economic scale. For this reason, I feel
that many people in other parts of the world do not understand that not everything can be
weighed in gold. Especially as a citizen of industrialized America, a ‘first world’ nation, I find it
unjust and unethical to call my own country ‘developed’, and Thailand ‘underdeveloped’ –
suggesting an immediate claim of superiority and one-upmanship, despite the fact that the US
and Thailand have both ‘developed’ just in very different, and arguably incomparable ways.
This frustration, I feel, accurately represents the very argument between quantity and
quality that I briefly alluded to in the beginning. While the United States may generate a higher
GDP that Thailand, to whatever extent, I feel that - if not the Thai population as a whole - at least
the Karen population demonstrate a way of life that exhibits integrity, self-sufficiency,
community, and to a large extent, sustainability, which is far more than I can say of the quality of
the United States. For this reason, despite the possibility of impossibility, we as a global whole
must try to redefine ‘value,’ and establish a new method of national measurement that gives
credibility to such things as I have accredited to the quality of the Karen way of life….
But the question I still struggle with, is how it will ever be possible to first destroy, and
then reconstruct our means of national comparison so that our corresponding model of
measurement is capable of measuring quality, rather than quantity... ?