Purpose Falls Short of Revolutionizing the Economy

Purpose, a documentary about the Well-being Economy Governments (WEGo) movement, aims to create a better economy but struggles to provide a clear path forward. The film's director, Martin Oetting, used to work in advertising before becoming disillusioned with his company's lack of concern for climate change. He left his job in 2016 and began researching alternative economic systems.

Oetting questions the assumption that economic growth necessarily leads to higher life satisfaction and a better quality of life. The primary metric of growth for most of the last century has been Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, GDP has its limitations, as it only measures production and consumption, not well-being or happiness.

The film follows the efforts of Katherine Trebeck, a Scottish politician and economist, and Lorenzo Fioramonti, an Italian politician, to transform their countries into well-being economies. WEGo currently consists of six member nations: Scotland, New Zealand, Iceland, Wales, Finland, and Canada.

While the film's protagonists have good intentions, they have struggled to build real-world political power. WEGo is far from rivaling the G7, and even Trebeck admits that the project has become diluted. The documentary emphasizes the importance of using more and better measurements than GDP to quantify a country's well-being.