What has wealth got to do with happiness?

12/05/2008

40 years ago, Robert Kennedy questioned the obsession with economic growth. 40 years on we publish his speech and ask our readers to judge whether his argument has since been won - or lost.

 

"We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the gross national product.

 

"For the gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of the carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for our people who break them. The gross national product includes the destruction of the redwoods, and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads.... It includes Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.

"And if the gross national product includes all of this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. 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 public officials ...

 

"The gross national product 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 whether we are proud to be Americans."

Robert Kennedy
18th March 1968
University of Kansas

 

That was 40 years ago. It's fascinating that we are still having the same debate.

Even the United Nations Human Development Programme argues that all countries should pay much more attention to the quality rather than the quantity of growth.

It identifies what it described as “five damaging forms of growth”:

• jobless - growth which does not translate into jobs
• voiceless - growth which is not matched by the spread of democracy
• rootless - growth which snuffs out separate cultural identity
• futureless - growth which despoils the environment
• ruthless - growth where most of the benefits are seized by the rich

So what's your opinion?  Is increasing the nation's economic activity necessary to give everyone the chance of greater prosperity - or is the price tag that comes with it not worth paying? email editorial@maturetimes.co.uk