Caterina.net: Robert Kennedy on GNP

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{ Friday, February 12, 2010 }

Robert Kennedy on GNP

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values 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 should judge America by that -- 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 those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. 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.

Today at TED David Cameron, according to Chris Anderson the "next PM of England" quoted the second half of this speech from Robert Kennedy.

LINK | 5:29 PM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

"It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them."

A lovely, haunting bit of prose, that is.

Ginevra | February 17, 2010 1:34 AM

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That's a great speech. Just because GNP is growing does not mean that our lives are improving. Not to say that economic progress isn't beneficial, but GNP hides the costs of growth and ignores other more valuable measures.

Why was this a national conversation decades ago but today rarely gets attention? Same goes for Herman Daly's Steady State Economy which has some great ideas (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941).

matt gross | February 20, 2010 7:00 AM

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Funny this.

And beautiful.

The oddest thing about this is the reminder that we no longer talk about GNP- even in wonky policy discussions. GDP (gross domestic product) has been the economic icon we've worshipped of late.

GDP measures all economic activity within a country (regardless of where the economic returns actually go), so it "counts" things like the foreign-owned manufacturing. GNP measures the return on all of a country's economic capital (even if some of it happens outside of its borders), but leaves out the economic returns of foreign companies that make things here.

I'd love to know how the ratio of GNP/GDP has changed in the US and UK since this speech. I have to believe that David Cameron knew exactly what he was doing with that quote.

j david | February 22, 2010 8:26 AM

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