Will only hitting the bottom stop the slide downwards?

"Within our gross national product we count industry which pollutes, cigarette advertising, ambulances to clear our highways of carnage, locks for our doors and the jails for people who break them, the destruction of the redwoods, napalm and nuclear warhead production, armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our city and 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, the beauty of our poetry, the strength of our marriages nor the intelligence of our public debate. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.

The gross national product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile".

That observation was made by the eloquent Robert Kennedy in 1968. That's 43 years ago! If RFK was alive today, would he conclude that only hitting the bottom will stop the slide downwards?

RFK made reference to "what makes life worthwhile". So how can a nation on a slippery slope suddenly discover, just before hitting the bottom, what makes life worthwhile? Why would the discovery be made at one minute to midnight that too much time and material has been spent pursuing the wrong objectives?

Some people are confident that our ingenuity will come to the rescue before we are down to the economic and social level of Cro-Magnon man struggling to keep homo sapiens from disappearing altogether. Paul Gilding gives the example of the stupidity leading us into World War ll and the astonishing reorganisation which was made in a matter of months to meet the challenge when no option for escaping into delusion was left.

However, unlike Gilding's analogy of the instant turnaround in perspective when bombs started to hit the ground, we do not notice a deterioration in the quality of life if it is gradual. If the deterioration is masked by objects we have not owned before, then it is even harder to see.

RFK stated that the gross national product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile. What about audio equipment and CDs? They are major contributors to the GNP, and they have added pleasure to a lot of lives. But are they filling a space that has been vacated by another pleasurable relaxation - such as reading a classic or friends coming over one night a week to play cards? Besides, radio running on vacuum tubes brought music into our lives and, at the time, we did not think that we needed more of it.

I will return to one year - 1944. The family, more or less, faced each other while listening to the radio. Generally it was quiz show. The radio was built into a large cabinet - so there was only one in the house. We were not so absorbed that my mum could not knit, my dad drift into a light slumber and my sister and I play a card game on the floor. The radio allowed one to do other things until something grabbed one's attention.

In contrast, TV consumes one's undivided attention. Wildlife features such as those of David Attenborough's cannot be matched by any book. But, documentaries padded with irrelevancies to keep us from escaping to something lighter, take an hour to provide the information a five-minute read could provide. All else on the tube simply kills time.

For the last two decades, TVs have been cheap enough to put one in each of the children's rooms. And, with the sun shining outside, their eyes are glued to the screen. The children even eat their dinner in front of them. It might have value in keeping the inmates of a nursing home from wandering, but on balance, the TV has sent us backwards because it has reshaped family life in a significantly negative way.

Now computer games and MP3s playing hour after hour of music removes our young people from life. The sale of that technology is also a major contributor to the GNP. The government is allowing industries which are shaping brain tissue in an unnatural and unknown way to be established - simply because they are industries.

What about the car?

My car and the one on my right moved off together as the light turned to green. For some reason, which the other driver could not explain, he immediately moved to turn to the left. We made contact at about five kilometers per hour. That is little more than walking speed. If we were both in Model A Fords, we would have continued on our way. But, we were in modern sedans. About $3000 damage to each - with the $6000 paid for by his insurance company.

Our social values determine the type of cars being manufactured. Indestructible Model A Fords won't do. And of what relevance is it to our social values that a Nepalese would have to work 30 years to earn $6000?

The building, selling, fueling and repair of automobiles is a major contributor to the GNP. What has the car contributed to making life worthwhile? I do know what it has taken from us.

One loss is the adventure of travel. When I was aged 14 an old man told me of his journey by Cobb & Co. A dusty, bone-shaking journey at an average speed which was not much faster than the walking pace of horses - and when passengers had to get out and walk behind the coach up steep hills. But with stays overnight at lonely inns along the road, they were journeys to remember for a lifetime.

Returning to 1944. I don't think anybody in Sydney lived more than 15 minutes walk from a train station or a tram or bus stop. In other words, a 15-minute walk set the limits to the size of Sydney. The city's population today is only three times what it was then, but it has been transformed by massive roadbuilding which includes billions of dollars spent on tunnels and bridges. And yet the people cannot move around except with difficulty.

We cannot live without our cars because a government obsessed with GNP has built a trap for us and itself. We now have immeasurable time wasted in traffic jams, in parking and in travelling through suburban sprawl. We have pollution, the cost of vehicle maintenance and repair and hundreds of old streets designed for people turned into thoroughfares for motor vehicles. And, we have a precarious dependence on imported oil.

On a warm evening in 1944 we all went out to the front gate. As other families did the same, we soon were crossing the street and chatting. Children and adults mixed together. As most fuel went into the war effort, there were almost no cars. An occasional horse-drawn cart appeared during the day. There was the sense of a street of closely-knit people rather than a thoroughfare for vehicles. One's street was something one had affection for.

No matter what the social or environmental cost

Much of our economy is built on human weakness - tobacco, alcohol, junk food and gambling. We have a highly valued boost to GNP measured in billions of dollars based on human weakness! That has to be self-destructive for a nation. But no contribution to the GNP is as insane as the essential role that waste plays.

In 1944, the smallness of the house we rented was no problem as we had little to put in it. And, as we owned so little, there was little to worry about being damaged and little to maintain. There was no litter as there was no throw-away plastic or aluminium packaging and all milk, beer and softdrink glass bottles were recycled as they were too valuable to throw away. Furniture and garments which were damaged and appliances which had stopped functioning, were repaired and not dumped.

As children in 1944 our free-time was spent playing in imaginary worlds where we were cowboys, soldiers, pirates, knights or nurses and doctors. We had almost no manufactured toys. Instead we made toys out of anything we could make into a toy. The sale of toys (all made overseas) is a major contribute to the GNP. What effect has easily-broken throw-away toys on the young mind in development?

Conclusion

We are sliding down a slope as;

• the GNP includes much that is detrimental to fundamental human needs and to the natural environment which underwrites our very existence, and
• we will always elect a government which has a focus on the GNP because the great majority of us are uncritical of development and incurably addicted to buying stuff.

The GNP has the grip on us that it has because we don't have a clear concept on what we really need to live a fulfilling life.