I just tweeted this:
As Robert Kennedy once said:
The gross national product 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 that is what we are seeing in today's GDP data.
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No doubt the Tories will claim that the economy is booming because of these figures. But they wish to cut state funded services which would reduce GDP because a small state is a good thing!! Shows how vapid their thinking on the economy is.
Interesting to see that Arts, Education and Recreation taking a nose-dive.
You may see this differently, but I think those do indicate some measure of what makes life worthwhile. We’ve got the opportunity to measure those things the way we do with health care appointments, or supervised education hours, but we use money. money,money.
King Jigme Singye Wangchuck would be looking down and shedding a tear.
I do very definitely think think the arts, education and recreation make life worthwhile
Should have said ‘Arts, Entertainment and Recreation’.
Does Glastonbury show up in GDP when the consumer buys the tickets which was 2 years ago for most, or when the music festival is on, or when the performers get paid? Either way it’ll show up as a small boost next month with festivals not having occurred the previous year.
Who knows? The ONS methodology is a little removed from reality
And of course there are all those wonderful Imputations, in my case because I am lucky enough to own my house outright some sort of value is, it seems assigned to that.
I rather liked Richard Douthwaites comment about somewhere on the West Coast of Ireland which was on paper (pre Expansion Eastwards) the poorest part of the EU by a long shot but certainly didnt look it because basically they did a lot for each other without payment.
If I and my neighbour look after our own children, that has no impact on GDP. If my neighbour pays me £10 to look after their children, and I pay them £10 to look after mine, GDP increases by £20. It is a nonsense – indeed, even the IEA thinks it is nonsense on stilts.
The whole of that paragraph in RFK’s remarks at the University of Kansas in March 1968 bear reading, particularly the first sentence and the last three sentences below. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product 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.”
Thanks
Where are the political leaders with the passion and vision and voice to say such things today?
AWOL
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated just 80 days later, as his brother had been, not 5 years before.
And here we are 54 years later, after decades of “the mere accumulation of material things”, with more air pollution and environmental destruction, and climate change baked in, and war and destruction, and inequality and poverty and riots.
Jesus wept.
Agreed
I’ve not heard or read the Robert Kennedy speech before but I was always struck by Jimmy Carter’s TV address on 15th July 1979 which is just as relevant today as it was then:
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisofconfidence.htm
GDP:
Gross
Domestic
Problem
Seems to me that GDP’s function is not to measure productive activity, but to enumerate productive flows that can be diverted by taxation (in the broadest sense) to power holders. Pretty much the same motivation as the Domesday Book. Encouraging GDP as a policy goal ( not merely a measurement) sophisticates that by actively steering productive activity into realms where profit / tax /rent can be extracted. So there’s a very strong motive for power-holders and power-seekers to fetishise its importance.
You are in a sense right
The motivation was to determine the capacity for war