Newscasts consistently indicate that life is good because GDP is going up. But for a real measure of progress, newscasters and policy-makers should look to the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). In 1995, Oakland think tank Redefining Progress unveiled the GPI to provide a more balanced measure of the economy. It gives value to leisure time, unpaid housework and volunteerism. It subtracts value for crime and family breakdown, resource depletion, traffic accidents, and other negatives.
Ultimately, the GPI recognizes the importance families, communities and nature play in economic well-being. Under the current national accounts system, these factors are ignored. Thus, while the GDP has been rising steadily since the 1950s, the GPI levelled off in the 1970s, and has even experienced prolonged dips. This begs the question, are we going forwards or backwards?
Courtesy of Adbusters magazine
2 comments:
How do you quantify the "Importance of family" in a numerical way?
This guy is a fool, I can count how many oranges are produced or how many cakes I make, I cannot quantify how much I love my parents.
What method of comparison would there be? Do Zimbabweans love their parents more than South Africans?
It's unbelieveable the trash that can be published from so called academics and taken seriously.
Let me try to save your face. How do you quantify living standards? Policies that government and business establish can help us come up with a way of measuring how they value family. The fact that an index to measure "importance of family" has not been developed does not mean it cannot be measured.
Probably you might want to hold back your accusation of foolishness, in case it might end up on you.
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