As The National tweeted yesterday, referring to my column in their paper:
It was long ago that I learned to look at what was not in deals, and what the stated exceptions were to really get a feel for what the whole thing might be about. In my column I concentrates on the exception clauses that the SNP and Greens in Scotland (who, I stress, are not the same party as the Greens in England and Wales) have agreed. I noted two things.
The first is that the two parties have agreed to disagree on the criteria for economic success. For the SNP this is inclusive growth - which I always fear has a feeling of trickle-down within it, although I am sure supporters would not agree - and sustainable growth, which is something very different.
Second, they have disagreed on how to measure success. The SNP want to use GDP and the Greens do not.
I admit I am on the Green side of this argument. I agree with Robert Kennedy who said before he was assassinated during his bid to become US President in 1968 that GDP:
does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
If you substituted Scotland for America in the last sentence you'd know exactly why the Greens are right to reject GDP as a useful measure. The hopes, aspirations and quality of life of a nation can never be captured by GDP.
Sustainable growth can capture those aspirations. But inclusive growth? I doubt it.
No wonder this is not a coalition. I just hope that the Greens can stick to their positions if in office.
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Thanks for being solid on this and pointing it out.
Gross Domestic Problem.
‘Inclusive development’ – okay maybe the SNP’s aim is to promote green alongside carbon but the problem is when you want green to grow stronger and get bigger. Someone in this climate crisis has to lose, and by rights it should be oil and coal otherwise its us! And they will not allow that it seems – unless Government helps them to rotate out of carbon.
The SNP also feel that oil is a sovereignty enabler don’t they? That’s another problem to be overcome.
BTW, there is an excellent documentary on Robert Kennedy on Netflix (RK for President) that I would heartily recommend to anyone interested in the man.
The real test is whether the SNP try and go ahead with more oil and gas exploration, which, if they do, the Greens must withdraw from the coalition. Also missed out is any mention of the role of Scotland baing a nuclear base for English militarists which Greens should not countenance.
Whilst agreeing that GDP is very limited in what it says about a country, it is at least relatively straightforward to measure.
The less tangible things you mention are significantly harder to measure as there is a large element of subjectivity in them. Has any country you know of implemented ways and means of tracking such things?
Do you know how absurd the measurement of GDP is?
How do you for example measure the income value of owner-occupied houses?
Agree it’s pretty mad but genuinely, what could the alternatives be or is trying to track a countries macro-economics a pointless exercise?
There are plenty of better measures….
GDP may be easy to measure, but it is quite literally worse than useless; it’s downright misleading.
Now you are teasing me. Have you written on what they are so I can take a look please?
Sorry – I don’t see what you are replying to when moderating and I can’t recall this details of this – apologies
No problem, you had replied to me asking what measures were better than GDP and I had asked if you had written about the alternatives
Others have done so better than me.
Start with Doughnut Economics and the work of the New Economics Foundation
Try this, a response in Richard’s What I think XR should be saying about capitalism:
PhilipToogood says:
August 28 2021 at 11:47 am
“I’d like to highlight an entrenched economic measure that some have said is not fit for purpose now, if it ever was, namely Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
For the past eight years, an alternative world-wide measure has been published annually and it is called the Social Progress Index under the Social Progress Initiative (SPI) organisation https://www.socialprogress.org.
It is an annual country-by-country analysis of progress on a myriad of metrics and takes some wading through but is a much better basis for measuring progress towards defined goals of a population’s wellbeing. A number of governments have adopted it an an alternative to, or alongside, GDP measures.”
Not Richard’s writing and not perfect by any means, but an example.
I understand GDP measures were a bit different up to WWII, when Keynes fought a losing battle to keep them but was overruled in favour of the current measures.
In essence they were only really created in ww2