A month before I was born — April 1968 — presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Kansas. His remarks touched on student protests and the war in Vietnam, though a lengthy passage about gross national product has resonated most powerfully in the years since. Kennedy was assassinated a few months later, which was just one of the pivotal moments that marked 1968 forever as tragically unforgettable and also a turning point in the nation’s history. Here is what Kennedy, known of course by his initials RFK, said:
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, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product — if we judge the United States of America by that — that Gross National Product 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 redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and 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. 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. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
RFK mentioned the size of GNP twice in his remarks and the first was a contrast with starving children: “I have seen children in Mississippi -here in the United States — with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars — I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation.” By contrast, the size of the U.S. economy in 2020 is just over $21 trillion dollars, or $21,160 billion, which on its face is 25x larger. Once inflation is accounted for, and also the definitional changes from GNP to real GDP, today’s economy is 17x or 18x larger than 1968. With a much larger population over time, we should look at real GDP per capita for the best measure of increased material wealth: $4,399 then to $50,259 now.
What I’ve been thinking about, however, is not the tenfold increase in material wellbeing, but the qualitative issues that RFK so eloquently raised. As those who know me already know, I’ve been researching the nature of economic value beyond GDP for some time now, and this reflection on RFK is a means to that end. Let’s break down the particulars of his remarks to identify the things and categories of things included and those missed by GDP:
- air pollution (externality of goods production)
- cigarette advertising (not sure about this one, an intermediate good?)
- ambulances (health care)
- highways of carnage (transportation)
- locks for our doors (security)
- jails (security)
- destruction of the redwood (public good / externality)
- napalm and nuclear warheads (security)
- police (security)
- television programs which glorify violence (entertainment with a negative externality)
- health of our children (health care)
- quality of education (public goods)
- joy of play (happiness)
- beauty of our poetry (entertainment)
- strength of our marriages (identity)
- intelligence of our public debate (governance / freedom)
- integrity of our public officials (governance / freedom)
It’s a fascinating list. Are there others like it? And how does it compare to the U.S. government definition of the components of GDP? I have more questions than answers, but RFK serves as a reminder that there is much beyond GDP even if our material metrics correlate closely with other kinds of happiness, fulfillment, and wellbeing.
