Quality of life and human potential in the concepts of sustainable and human development (part 1)

Human potential and quality of life are the most important socio-economic categories. On the one hand, development of society is connected with improving the quality of life of population and realizing its human potential. On the other hand, it is human potential that is currently the main driving force contributing to economic growth, scientific and technological progress and cultural development of the country. Despite this, there is still no clear definition and unified measurement system for these categories. Abroad, there is no concept of human potential at all, although many concepts appeal to this very category. This review article attempts to define these complex social categories and clearly distinguish them. In the course of the work there were analyzed the chronology of the development of these concepts, their evolution from other related concepts and their interpretation by modern concepts. The article shows the fundamental differences between human potential and quality of life that lie in different research objects. If quality of life mainly reflects the external conditions of life, then human potential has as an object of study the qualitative characteristics of population and therefore can be called the quality of population by analogy with the definition of the quality of life. The author also gave an overview of two modern concepts of sustainable and human development, identified their main principles, goals and objectives, and compared them with each other. As a result, it was concluded that the two concepts are almost identical and interchangeable. Besides, they are both the concepts of quality of life improvement, their main goal is to create favorable external conditions, in which a person can freely develop and realize his aspirations and needs.