In many countries, the government focuses on economic development more than every other aspect. While this trend helps these countries achieve short-term goals of upgrading facilities and building up international reputation, I think it is detrimental to the countries’ long-term development as it destroys the environment and overworks people.
On the one hand, with a strong economy, a nation can construct modern, state-of-the-art buildings. Such buildings help increase the country’s overall productivity as they provide people with the tools and space necessary to aid their work. For example, a scientist who is developing the vaccine for a new virus will have to curate data from countless petri dishes and then try to make sense of that enormous chunk of data, this workload can only be done in time with the help of AI, which tells the scientist what does he have to look at among that vast amount of data. A developed economy also raises the reputation of a country. With enough money, the government can invest in tourism, or other industries such as film and fashion which can make their country known to foreigners. To illustrate, most of the time when people mention Japan nowadays, they would be talking about their manga and anime industry, which brings the country’s traditions to every corner around the globe.
On the other hand, blindly focusing on economic growth leads to the lack of attention to other aspects. One of these aspects is the environment, which is compromised by many countries to accomplish economic development. Many forests are being destroyed for land, which is necessary for city constructions, hence, biodiversity in many regions is in danger. For example, contrast to the exponential increase in the number of skyscrapers and state-of-the-art buildings, Vietnam’s total forest has decreased by almost 40% over the last 20 years. Another problem is that asthe economy grows, people are required to work more, thus, increasing the rate of turnover due to stress.
In conclusion, while focusing solely on he economy helps upgrade facilities and improve the countries’ reputation, it destroys the environment and people’s mental health, which outweighs all the mentioned benefits.