New GDP / IPB

Internal Product of Belonging: measuring Brazil by the life it sustains

We need to begin this text with a simple question:

what does Brazil really measure when it says it has grown?

It measures production.
It measures consumption.
It measures exports.
It measures investment.
It measures services.
It measures industry.
It measures agriculture.
It measures money circulating.
It measures what enters the Gross Domestic Product.

GDP is important. It shows part of economic activity. It helps compare countries, plan budgets, evaluate cycles, observe sectors, and understand flows of production. But GDP can also hide many things.

It can rise while people sleep worse.
It can rise while the territory loses water.
It can rise while the forest falls.
It can rise while the city becomes ill.
It can rise while the worker lives in excess.
It can rise while the family loses time, health, and belonging.
It can rise while climate emergency approaches the home.

That is why we need another indicator.

Not to erase GDP.

To put GDP in its proper place.

GDP measures economic production.

IPB — Internal Product of Belonging — would measure the life Brazil is able to sustain.

IPB asks:

did this production increase belonging?
Did it increase health?
Did it increase life time?
Did it increase dignified housing?
Did it increase safe water?
Did it increase essential electricity?
Did it increase sanitation?
Did it increase rest?
Did it increase food sovereignty?
Did it increase clean energy?
Did it increase living biomes?
Did it increase climate security?
Did it increase care for children and elders?
Did it increase Brazilian added value?
Did it increase municipal autonomy?
Did it increase public participation?
Did it increase Jiwasa?

This is the turn.

Brazil needs to measure development by concrete life in the Body-Territory.

We already perceive this in health. SUS is a materiality of Jiwasa: together, we help everyone. Now we need to bring this intelligence into the entire economy. If public health recognizes that the Brazilian body matters, public economy also needs to recognize that economic production only makes sense when it sustains bodies, territories, and futures.

IPB is born as a response to the myopia of growth without belonging.

For a long time, the world accepted a narrow idea: if GDP grows, the country improves. That sentence simplified life too much. A country can grow while cutting down forests, indebting families, exploiting workers, concentrating income, destroying rivers, making cities sick, and selling cheaply what could generate value for generations.

This is the problem of productivity of excess.

Productivity of excess means producing more while life sustains less.

It increases volume and reduces belonging.
It increases profit and reduces time.
It increases exports and reduces the biome.
It increases consumption and reduces mental health.
It increases economic activity and reduces the sovereignty of the Body-Territory.

Climate emergencies do not appear by chance.

They are accumulated effects of a way of producing that separated money, body, and territory. A way of producing that called extraction progress. That called destruction development. That called excess productivity. That called profit intelligence. That called GDP destiny.

The deep cause of climate emergencies is predatory extractivism organized as economic normality.

When territory becomes resource without Body-Territory, the forest becomes stock.
When water becomes input without Jiwasa, the river becomes cost.
When the worker becomes a piece, the body becomes expense.
When the city becomes market, housing becomes speculation.
When the biome becomes margin, climate emergency becomes consequence.

IPB changes the question of the State.

Instead of asking only “how much did Brazil produce?”, we ask:

how much Brazil remained alive after this production?

Here enters natural Jiwasa.

Jiwasa is the “we” that appears in living systems when the parts perceive the movement of the whole. We see this in flocks of birds, swarms of bees, schools of fish, mycelia, forests, communities, families, teams, peoples, and also inside our own bodies. White blood cells can coordinate collective responses like swarms to protect the organism. Life knows how to organize itself in collectives before becoming discourse.

The human body carries biological Jiwasa.

The problem is that some people have great difficulty perceiving collective needs. They may be intelligent, efficient, brilliant in specific areas, excellent with clear rules, strong in closed systems, powerful in calculation, strategy, speech, image, or social adaptation. This competence has value. Brazil needs specialists. It needs scientists, engineers, managers, technicians, programmers, investors, communicators, artists, and entrepreneurs.

The issue appears when this difficulty in perceiving the collective combines with high social power, high IQ, great representational capacity, and access to instruments of capture.

A person can hide behind corporate entities.
Can hide behind legal structures.
Can hide behind discourses of efficiency.
Can hide behind social actors created by marketing.
Can appear to be what they are not.
Can gather followers without sustaining their Body-Territory.
Can use the rhetoric of caring for the population while defending measures that wound the body and the territory.

This is one of the great dangers of a captured Brazil.

Leaders with low perception of Jiwasa can use GDP as a shield.

They say: “the country grew.”
But the water got worse.
They say: “the economy recovered.”
But the worker became ill.
They say: “production increased.”
But the biome was reduced.
They say: “the market approved.”
But housing became more distant.
They say: “investment arrived.”
But the territory lost sovereignty.
They say: “profit rose.”
But the people lost life time.

IPB exists to reveal what GDP hides.

It also helps protect the State against predatory leaders, whether political, corporate, religious, financial, technological, or media-based.

Here we need ethical care.

The proposal is not to diagnose babies, label children, persecute neurodivergent people, or affirm that anyone is born condemned to be a bad leader. The proposal is different: to accompany, from early life, with science, care, and responsibility, difficulties in collective perception, cooperation, leadership exchange, repair, listening, emotional regulation, and sensitivity to the common.

A child with difficulty in Jiwasa needs support, not condemnation.

They can learn pathways.
They can develop explicit rules.
They can find valuable roles.
They can become excellent in specific areas.
They can contribute greatly to Brazil.
They can be protected from positions for which their body does not yet perceive the collective well.
They can receive environments where leadership does not depend on domination, charisma, or capture.

This applies to everyone.

Leadership should not be a prize for those who speak better.
Leadership should not be a prize for those who capture attention.
Leadership should not be a prize for those who dominate the stage, money, or the algorithm.
Leadership should be a situated function of caring for the whole.

In complex living systems, leadership rotates.

In the school of fish, movement does not depend on a fixed chief.
In the flock of birds, the pattern emerges from relation.
In the swarm, intelligence appears in coordination.
In the body, cells respond to context.
In the orchestra, the conductor creates conditions for each instrument to appear at the right moment.

A good human leader should function like an orchestra conductor.

They perceive who should appear.
They open space for situated competence.
They hand over leadership when someone else knows better.
They protect those who need care.
They reduce their own brightness when the group needs another center.
They sacrifice personal advantage to protect the whole.

This is the difference between Jiwasa leadership and capturing leadership.

Jiwasa leadership increases the intelligence of the group.
Capturing leadership uses the group to increase its own position.

Jiwasa leadership accepts losing protagonism.
Capturing leadership maintains the center.

Jiwasa leadership measures concrete life.
Capturing leadership measures results that protect its own narrative.

Jiwasa leadership asks about the Body-Territory.
Capturing leadership asks about profit, image, power, or rate.

IPB needs to enter exactly here.

It is an instrument to pull Brazil out of the hypnosis of GDP.

The first constitutional proposal would be to recognize the Internal Product of Belonging.

Article 174-D — The economic and social planning of the Brazilian State shall use, in addition to Gross Domestic Product, the Internal Product of Belonging, intended to measure the capacity of the country, States, Municipalities, and territories to sustain concrete life, health, housing, water, energy, sanitation, time, food, education, safety, biomes, citizen participation, digital sovereignty, culture, care, and belonging.

In simple language: development needs to measure the life Brazil sustains.

The second proposal would be to create the IPB Matrix of the Body-Territory.

Article 174-E — The IPB Matrix of the Body-Territory shall organize public indicators of belonging, including base-housing, safe water, essential energy, sanitation, physical and mental health, commuting time, quality of work, sufficient income, food security, care for children and elders, access to education, connectivity, preserved biome, territorial carbon, public participation, culture, sport, science, innovation, and local sovereignty.

In simple language: Brazil needs to see what allows people to live well.

The third proposal would be to create the IPB Test for public policies and major projects.

Article 174-F — Every public policy, subsidy, strategic work, concession, tax incentive, economic program, parliamentary amendment, or project of high territorial impact shall present an IPB Test of Benefit to the Body-Territory, demonstrating effects on health, housing, water, energy, work, time, biome, carbon, inequality, participation, and belonging.

In simple language: any project that uses the name of development needs to show that it improves real life.

The fourth proposal would be to protect the State against capture by narrow indicators.

Article 37-E — The use of isolated economic indicators to justify public policies, cuts in rights, environmental destruction, labor precarization, removals, strategic privatizations, or territorial indebtedness shall be accompanied by a public assessment of impact on the Internal Product of Belonging.

In simple language: GDP alone cannot authorize damage to the Body-Territory.

The fifth proposal would be to create the Jiwasa Leadership Index.

Article 37-F — Strategic public functions, institutional leadership positions, territorial councils, and the direction of high-impact programs shall observe criteria of Jiwasa leadership, including capacity for cooperation, listening, leadership exchange, transparency, protection of the common, repair of errors, territorial sensitivity, and commitment to the Internal Product of Belonging.

In simple language: leading the State requires perceiving the common.

The sixth proposal would be to create environments of Jiwasa formation from childhood.

Article 205-A — Brazilian education shall promote competencies of belonging, cooperation, listening, territorial care, rotating leadership, conflict resolution, evidence-based science, emotional health, bodily perception, and collective responsibility, respecting neurodiversity, singularity, dignity, and freedom of each student.

In simple language: school can teach how to feel the collective without erasing difference.

The seventh proposal would be to place climate emergencies inside IPB.

Article 225-B — The Brazilian State shall recognize that the protection of biomes, water, climate, biodiversity, soils, forests, cities, and vulnerable territories constitutes an essential dimension of the Internal Product of Belonging, and economic policies shall consider climate risks, emissions, adaptation, environmental regeneration, and territorial justice.

In simple language: living climate is living belonging.

IPB would also change the way we look at companies.

A high-IPB company generates value and life.
A low-IPB company may generate profit and destroy territory.
A high-IPB company pays better, uses clean energy, reduces excess, protects workers, adds technology, preserves water, measures carbon, cares for its surroundings, and delivers products with more embedded service.
A low-IPB company outsources damage, captures public resources, precarizes work, uses purpose-driven marketing, and delivers destruction as if it were growth.

The question becomes:

what is the IPB of this company?

Does it increase belonging or only profit?
Does it increase health or only productivity?
Does it increase added value or only volume?
Does it increase local sovereignty or only dependency?
Does it increase living biome or only extraction?
Does it increase life time or only working hours?
Does it increase Jiwasa or only narrative?

IPB also changes politics.

A high-IPB government improves housing, water, electricity, sanitation, health, school, food security, transportation, culture, science, biome, time, and participation.

A low-IPB government may inaugurate public works, increase GDP, appear in advertising, and still worsen concrete life.

IPB would make the population ask:

did my home improve?
Did my water improve?
Did my electricity become safer?
Did my commuting time fall?
Did my mental health improve?
Did my neighborhood become cooler?
Did my city become more prepared for rain and heat?
Did my work become more dignified?
Did my food become healthier?
Did my municipality gain sovereignty?
Did my biome become more protected?
Did my public participation increase?

This is Brazil measuring what matters.

IPB also protects against false saviors.

Social actors assembled by marketing may speak of people, family, faith, freedom, order, progress, patriotism, market, innovation, or sustainability. But IPB asks for the trace.

Where is the improved life?

Where is the protected water?
Where is the guaranteed housing?
Where is the less exhausted worker?
Where is the preserved biome?
Where is the child sleeping better?
Where is the elder with more dignity?
Where is the less vulnerable territory?
Where is local sovereignty?
Where is the traceable resource?
Where is Jiwasa?

IPB removes politics from rhetoric and places it in the Body-Territory.

It also removes economy from abstraction and places it in life.

GDP asks how much circulated.

IPB asks what this circulation sustained.

GDP asks how much was produced.

IPB asks how much life remained possible after production.

GDP asks how much the market recognized.

IPB asks how much the territory breathed.

GDP asks how much grew.

IPB asks who was able to belong.

This is a profound change.

Brazil can become a country that measures prosperity as belonging.

This does not reduce the economy. It expands the economy. It places money inside life. It places profit inside territory. It places production inside climate. It places technology inside care. It places leadership inside Jiwasa. It places the State inside the Body-Territory.

IPB can have simple dimensions:

Housing: safe home, sanitation, water, electricity, residential stability.
Health: SUS, mental health, prevention, food, healthy environment.
Time: commuting, rest, care, coexistence, fruition.
Work: sufficient income, formalization, safety, creativity, reduction of excess.
Education: school, connectivity, science, culture, formation of belonging.
Biome: water, forest, carbon, soil, biodiversity, climate adaptation.
Sovereignty: clean energy, data, local production, added value, DREX Citizen.
Jiwasa: participation, rotating leadership, trust, transparency, cooperation, and care for the common.

These dimensions can be measured by municipality, neighborhood, biome, productive sector, company, value chain, public policy, and parliamentary amendment.

The great question stops being:

how much is Brazil worth?

And becomes:

how much life does Brazil sustain?

The Internal Product of Belonging is an economic, constitutional, and existential proposal.

It is born because GDP alone does not feel the body.

IPB feels.

It feels the home.
It feels the water.
It feels the electricity.
It feels time.
It feels rest.
It feels the forest.
It feels the worker.
It feels the child.
It feels the elder.
It feels the city.
It feels the climate.
It feels Jiwasa.

Brazil’s sovereignty begins when we measure what sustains Brazilian life.

And perhaps this is the great leap of the New World:

to leave behind the country that grows by destroying and become the country that prospers by belonging.

References and Foundations for Further Reading

OECD, How’s Life? 2024 and Well-being and Beyond GDP — indicators of well-being, inequality, sustainability, and resources for the future.

Stiglitz, Sen, Fitoussi, and Durand — the Beyond GDP agenda, defending indicator dashboards to measure well-being, distribution, and sustainability.

United Nations, High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP, 2024–2025 — global standards for measuring progress beyond GDP.

UNDP, Human Development Report 2023/2024 — human development, inequality, cooperation, polarization, and planetary pressures.

IPCC, AR6 Synthesis Report 2023 — global warming caused by human activities, patterns of production and consumption, energy use, and land use.

SEEG Brazil, 2024–2025 — Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions, land-use change, agriculture, and deforestation.

Social Progress Index Brazil 2024 — municipal indicators of social progress, housing, education, health, rights, voice, and environmental quality.

Kienle et al., 2021, and Brown et al., 2023 — studies on neutrophil swarming as collective coordination of immune cells.

Cui et al., 2024 — collective intelligence expanded by AI and human groups as complex systems.

Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum — freedom as the real capability to be and to do.

Elinor Ostrom — governance of commons, cooperation, and local institutions.

Antonio Damasio — body, homeostasis, feeling, consciousness, and decision.

Alfredo Pereira Jr. — Triple-Aspect Monism, integrating material, informational, and conscious dimensions of reality.