ECONOMICS IS A DOMINANT PART OF OUR LIVES, BUT THE TRUE ECOLOGICAL cost of our economics is never factored in. In fact, some indicators of economic health mask the real costs.
Our economy is made possible by the fact that we, as biological beings, exist on Earth’s productivity. Yet we are told that we need continued economic growth to afford a clean environment. So we rip up the Earth’s productive capacity in order to keep on growing, even though this conflicts with the most fundamental rule in economics—you don’t spend all of your capital if you want to avoid bankruptcy.
Economists have provided us with various ways to assess the “health” of the economy. One of them, the Gross National Product (GNP), is the total market value of all goods and services in society created in a year. The GNP is a sacred measure of annual economic growth and positively encourages environmental degradation. Athough a standing old-growth forest, a wild caribou herd, an unused pure aquifer, a deep-sea vent, and an undammed watershed have immeasurable ecological values and perform countless “services” in the total planetary biosphere, they do not register in the GNP. Only when people find a way to exploit them for financial returns does the GNP go up.
The GNP is also devoid of assessments of the social and environmental costs associated with the increase in goods and services. Suppose a major fire at a chemical or nuclear plant or pollution from a pulp mill spreads toxic compounds over a vast area and many people become very sick. More nurses, doctors, hospitals, janitors, medicines, and so on will be needed— so the GNP goes up. If people begin to die as a result of that exposure to toxic substances, there’s greater demand for undertakers, caskets, flowers, air travel for mourners, grave diggers, and lawyers—the GNP rises further! As Ralph Nader has said, “Every time there’s a car accident, the GNP goes up.” The GNP is so preposterous that it went up in 1989 because of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which was the greatest marine disaster in American history.
The GNP does not even register the quality and quantity of clean air, water, soil, and biological diversity. And what about the things that don’t result in the exchange of money? The very glue that keeps the social fabric of communities and families intact does not involve money and therefore is invisible to the GNP. The person who opts to be a full-time parent does not register economically, whereas paid baby-sitters, nannies, and day-care workers do. All of the volunteer services performed at many levels of society—care for the elderly, the disabled, or the mentally handicapped— do not appear in the GNP. One of my associates belongs to the Lions Club and spends weeks every year preparing for a road race for quadriplegics. He enjoys it immensely, and his actions provide severely handicapped people with some excitement and fun. The value to the community of this kind of volunteer work is beyond price yet does not contribute to the GNP. The preeminence of the economy and GNP tears at these hidden social services in developing countries and impels them to pursue cash to service international debt and purchase products of industrial countries.
The role of the GNP in disrupting the social and environmental underpinnings of industrialized nations is illustrated in a story in the magazine Adbusters (volume 1, number 3):
Joe and Mary own a small farm. They are self-reliant, growing as much of their food as possible, and providing for most of their own needs. Their two children chip in and the family has a rich home life. Their family contributes to the health of their community and the nation … but they are not good for the nation’s business because they consume so little.
Joe and Mary can’t make ends meet, so Joe finds a job in the city. He borrows $13,000 to buy a Toyota and drives 50 miles to work every day. The $13,000 and his yearly gas bill are added to the nation’s Gross National Product (GNP).
Then Mary divorces Joe because she can’t handle his bad city moods anymore. The $11,000 lawyer’s fee for dividing up the farm and assets is added to the nation’s GNP. The people who buy the farm develop it into townhouses at $200,000 a pop. This results in a spectacular jump in the GNP.
A year later Joe and Mary accidentally meet in a pub and decide to give it another go. They give up their city apartments, sell one of their cars and renovate a barn in the back of Mary’s father’s farm. They live frugally, watch their pennies and grow together as a family again. Guess what? The nation’s GNP registers a fall and the economists tell us we are worse off.
I am not an economist, but you don’t have to be one to know something is wrong and has to be changed