The Global Abundance Scorecard began with a stubborn disagreement over what countries boast about. Economic reports count production, expenditures, investment and market output with extraordinary precision. Yet we kept asking questions that mattered to our children: can a family eat? Does a mother have access to care? Can a child reach a friend without being driven? Can a capable person contribute? Can a household welcome relatives without risking its own food?

A country needs industry, energy, schools, farms, roads, hospitals and productive expertise. Korea demonstrated what a determined population can accomplish in decades. America demonstrated what media and research institutions can distribute across the world. Turkey demonstrated a wonderful coexistence of agricultural production, tourism, public leisure and languages. We admire great achievements and still ask what is missing from ordinary life. The Scorecard is our way of keeping both thoughts in view.

Our research framework follows food, housing and land, healthcare, transportation, water and energy, education, family time, environment, child independence, capabilities and wider social conditions. We include international welcome and a country’s external effect on others. The Money Gate tests whether the essentials reach living people without direct price barriers. It is a deliberately demanding question. Production alone cannot earn a country the status of abundant life.

Sher’s argument about schoolchildren in England is one of the Scorecard’s clearest inspirations. A country can become richer in cars and transport spending while the child becomes poorer in independent movement. When a national system produces such a trade, a useful score must show it. More money in circulation will not satisfy us when less life comes home.