These acronymic calculations are of interest only to governments (and perhaps to professional economists).
They are really of little use to anyone else - though they help to fill newspaper columns.
I have absolutely no idea what is meant by "to find out whether the war was economically profitable".
Harry
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Brian wrote:
EDwrote: > I suppose it would depend on how threatening to conventional norms the > curiosity was. If one proposed to demonstrate that the quality of > life was > inversely related to GDP one might not get funded.Hi Ed, Marilyn Waring created a documentary film called "Sex, Lies, and Economics". You can get it through your public library.It is available through NFB. In it she challenges the concept of GDP as it is currently define: ----------------------------- Meanwhile more feminists have tried to bring this submerged economy to the surface, particularly with regard to women's work (Waring: 1988 Henderson:1993 Steinem: 1993). Particularly Marilyn Waring has tried to show, what it would mean if women's work counted, if their work was included in the GDP. In my view, the most interesting part of her analysis is her tracing the history of the GDP as an indicator of economic growth, which was/is considered equivalent to "well-being". Not only was this indicator developed by British economists like Keynes, Stone and Gilbert during WW II (Waring: 1989) in order to find out whether the war was economically profitable, after the war this indicator was universalized in the UNSNA (United Nations System of National Accounting) to measure the achievements, i. e. the growth of all national economies in the world. It is characteristic for this indicator that it excludes not only women's work in the household, but also all other non-wage work for subsistence, particularly that of small peasants in the South. It also excludes the "work" of nature; her regenerative cycles are taken for granted. Not the destruction of nature is counted, but only if the repair of this destruction involves further wage labour, investment, industry, profits. Only the labour that contributes directly to the generation of profit is called productive labour. And only the labour that produces commodities is counted in the GDP. Hence, the GDP is still an indicator which rather measures destructive production than the well-being of people. This is quite evident if one looks at the environmental and social costs of what still is called "development". As a recent example I want to mention the gigantic dam project on the Narmada in India, known as the Sardar Sarovar Project. 3,000 dam projects are planned which are supposed to serve for irrigation, power generation, drinking water collection. But this "development", meant mainly for urban and rural middle classes, will destroy the livelihood of more than 200,000 people - mainly tribals, who are being evicted from their traditional habitat in the forests. It will destroy huge areas of primeval forests with their wild-life, their species variety, and it will also destroy a large number of temples on the river banks, cultural centres since ancient times. The promoters of this project, the World Bank (which meanwhile has stopped its credits) and the Indian Government simply argue, that in the process of development always some people will have to suffer. Of course, those who have to suffer are never those who reap the fruits of this development. -------------------------------------- So you can see Ed that the GDP was the creation of a man, Keynes, whose beliefs, assumptions, attitudes and values shaped his economic theory. What if a women had been given the task? Take care, Brian
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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