and 3 months. later he was assassinated (or executed). . . .coincidence? On Oct 24, 2012 2:31 PM, "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/22-9 > > Published on Monday, October 22, 2012 by The Guardian > > Is GDP's Reign as the Only Measure of Wealth Coming to an End? > > Challenges to the supremacy of gross domestic product, which ignores > natural and household contributions, are growing > > by Jane Gleeson-White > > Britain has now posted three consecutive quarters of declining gross > domestic product - the most recent figures show the economy has > shrunk by 0.5%. With the latest set of GDP figures due to be released > later this week, the nation remains sunk in the longest recession > since the second world war. > > But GDP is also coming under a different sort of scrutiny in these > days of economic woe. GDP measures all legal transactions in the > financial economy - no more and no less. And yet, since its inception > in the 1930s, it has become the single most important policy tool for > governments, financial institutions and corporations. Governments and > many people believe that only this one miraculous figure can really > show whether things are getting better or getting worse. > > But GDP is a partial and misleading measure of national wealth and > wellbeing. The problem is that it does not measure key goods in our > economy, those unpriced but priceless services carried out by > domestic workers and by nature - for example, the coastal defence of > coral reefs, the pollution-filtering of wetlands, the nutrient > recycling done by the soil and the unpaid work we do in our homes. > > And yet GDP does include bad elements such as pollution, crime, > cigarettes and their related health costs and environmental > disasters, which boost GDP and so generate economic growth. > > These omissions and inclusions generate alarming anomalies. Here are > two: we are better economic agents if we eat out at expensive > restaurants rather than cooking food we've grown at home; cleaning up > the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was worth more > economically - in GDP terms - than the carbon absorption provided by > the Amazon rainforest. > > Under current GDP measures, countries that cut down forests for > timber exports, dynamite their reefs for fish, pollute and degrade > their soil for intensive agriculture and allow farms and factories to > contaminate their waterways get rich. > > The services provided by nature and households are not included in > GDP because we consider their work to be free. But these services are > not free - and we are beginning to pay their hidden costs in > environmental destruction and climate change. > > Conceived in Washington DC during the Depression, the GNP (as it was > then) was flawed from the outset. Even its creator, Simon Kuznets, > argued that it was a partial measure of national wealth, as did > economist John Maynard Keynes, who oversaw the construction of the > first British national accounts during the second world war. > > Both Keynes and Kuznets considered these figures to be temporary > measures, for use only in emergencies such as wars and depressions. > But they quickly became enshrined in public life, and after the > second world war they were imposed on almost every nation on earth. > > The first politician to rail publicly against the GDP was Senator > Robert Kennedy in March 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 Š > counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to > clear our highways of carnage." For Kennedy, GDP measured > "everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile". > > It took 40 years for Kennedy's words to reach Washington DC: in March > 2008 a US Senate committee discussed GDP's failure to measure > environmental damage, poverty, income inequality, health and the > quality of life. Two years later, Obama's healthcare bill allowed > $70m over eight years to develop a new system of US national > indicators. Economists from the group the State of the USA are now > working to generate 10 to 15 key measures from a set of some 300 > indicators, including health, education, crime and justice, art and > culture, the environment, and the economy. These new, more > comprehensive measures are designed to guide US policy in an era of > environmental destruction and economic downturn. > > GDP has been similarly challenged and deconstructed in Europe. In > 2009, the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy recruited a team of > economists "to tear the GDP apart as they saw fit". They too found > that GDP should be replaced and that other indicators should be > introduced to monitor social and environmental, as well as economic, > change. > > The UN is working to value ecosystem services - or natural capital - > and this year adopted a new international standard to give natural > capital equal status to GDP. Speaking at the UN's conference Rio+20, > Nick Clegg said the UK was committed to including natural capital in > its national accounts by 2020. > > One notable exception to the reign of GDP across the globe is Bhutan, > which for the last four decades has used "gross national happiness" > as the important measure, instead of GDP. With its long experience of > alternative measures, Bhutan is now instrumental in current debates > about national wealth and wellbeing. > > These initiatives to tear GDP apart are still in progress, but they > make it clear that GDP's 80-year reign as the unchallenged measure of > national wealth is at an end. > > © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited > > Jane Gleeson-White is the author of Double Entry: How the Merchants > of Venice Created Modern Finance > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 > messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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