Quote of the Week
“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 … 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.”
– Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968.
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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.
No, that’s exactly what it allows (among other things).
Also, the quote seems to implicitly involve the broken window fallacy. That part of GNP goes to such things as cigarette advertising and napalm is no doubt bad, but if we didn’t spend part of our incomes on such things it’s not like GNP would be lower by that amount; we’d just spend our incomes on different things.
Greg Mankiw also respectfully critiqued this quote in his textbook.
Adder – “To allow for” in this quote means “to count”.
It is a beautiful quote.
Blackadder,
RFK seems to have meant that homo sapiens is, or should, amount to more than homo oeconomicus. Perhaps, at bottom, you disagree with that notion.
Perhaps, at bottom, you disagree with that notion.
Nope.
I think that we can add pornography and abortion to to RFK’s list right between nuclear warheads and napalm as things that are counted as productive for the economy, when they are acutually destructive.
Amen.