Robert F. Kennedy on what GDP does/does not measure
RFK said this in 1968. In a speech I heard today it was quoted and it stirred me.
“We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missles and nuclear warheads…. It includes… the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.
“And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. 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… the Gross National Product 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….”
Which way did it stir you? That’s serious. It’s just another cheap attack on the validity of a measure not designed to capture most things it’s attacked for. It’s like telling Ian Thorpe he’s no good because he can’t run.
Nonsense. It’s a timely reminder that the GDP measure includes factors that it is in nobody’s interest to maximise and omits others that contribute importantly to society’s well-being. Yet both political and business leaders set great store by the rate at which GDP increases to the exclusion of other measures.
And anyway, Ian Thorpe [I]can[/I] run, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/24/2226268.htm
GDP is not a measure of well-being, but it is strongly correlated with well-being. It is no coincidence that a country like Chad has both a much lower GDP per capita than Australia and lower standard of living, however you want to measure it.
“It’s a timely reminder that the GDP measure includes factors that it is in nobody’s interest to maximise and omits others that contribute importantly to society’s well-being”
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You are confusing a measure of everything with (a) GDP; and (b) the interpretation some people give to GDP. Neither of those is correct.
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GDP is just a measure. If people abuse it, that doesn’t make it a bad measure for what it’s supposed to measure. If someone concludes that it is a measure of everything, they’re wrong. If the governments think it is important to maximize over another measure, then your gripe is with the government, not the measure.
Conrad says:
“Which way did it stir you? That’s serious. It’s just another cheap attack on the validity of a measure not designed to capture most things it’s attacked for.”
Don’t be such an obtuse dill.
People DO argue for the use of GDP as a measure of progress and living standards irrespective of its original purpose. Obviously it therefore makes sense to put the “against” case.
“Obviously it therefore makes sense to put the “against” case.”
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It’s not an “against” case if I’m thinking what I think you are thinking. It’s basically just finding other things that arn’t measured by GDP. I’ve no problem with that. The “against” case should really be directed at people misusing GDP or placing too much importance on it as a measure. If, say, the joy of play is as important as GDP, I’m happy to see both reported and people can make up their own minds which measure they happy to think is useful for evaluating their situation.
I am always amazed that self-claimed economists so often forget that GDP is another way of measuring the National Income (NY), that being the sum of all personal incomes. I have never met an economist (or a Kennedy) who preferred a reduction is his/her income to an increase. If depreciation is allowed for we then have NDP and NNY, and depreciation properly accounted for takes into account any reduction in national income earning capacity as might arise from uncontrolled pollution. NNY includes both the incomes of robbers like Madoff and the Mafia and the lower incomes they inflicted on their victims. That is why society puts Madoffs behind bars when it can.
Ann Richards often said much the same thing here in Texas — but she presided over a massive expansion of the Texas prison system. She got it done efficiently, because the legislature said it should be done and allocated the money, and Richards knew Republicans would screw it up (as they had previously).
I think she hoped that once the prisons were built, they wouldn’t be used. Whatever her hopes, Texas got stupid and replaced her with George W. Bush, who attacked school buildings instead
But if you build them, judges will sentence people to live there (especially with mandatory sentences, when judges have no real role in distributing justice rather than just long jail sentences).
GNP, or GDP now, measure the bad with the good. Humpty Dumpty told Alice that the question is who is to be master, the human or the word. It’s up to us to change spending so that spending is positive in all respects, not just as spending. Swords to plowshares, butter instead of guns, recycling instead of landfills, health instead of attempts to restore health. We choose.
P.S. — I think I’ll steal the quote from you. Good catch.
[...] Cribbing completely from Harry Clarke (with a few corrections in the text): Robert F. Kennedy speech at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, March 18, 1968 – Photo by George Silk, Time-Life Pictures/Getty Images RFK said this in 1968. In a speech I heard today it was quoted and it stirred me. Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP — if we judge the United States of America by that — that GNP 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 redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it 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. [...]