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'We ain’t seen nothin’ yet'

By Bret Hart - posted Monday, 13 March 2006


Table 1

There appears to be a cost attached to the increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and it is the most vulnerable who suffer the most, as indicated by the late Marc Miringoff, Director of the Fordham Institute Index who said, “the decline in the social health of children and youth tells us something about the future shape of our society”.

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This apparent anomalous inverse relationship between GDP and social health has been described by Keating and Hertzman as modernity’s paradox. Smith & Rutter (Psychosocial social disorders in young people: time trends and their causes, 1995) also found evidence of increasing problems in their comprehensive analysis of the psychosocial health of children and adolescents and reasons for the increasing “social toxicity” have been suggested.

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that they recommended that those who are responsible for assessing progress should shift the emphasis from economic to social indicators.

Another reason for developing non-economic indicators is that the GDP and other economic measures are inadequate measures of progress. Two hundred years ago Scottish economist Adam Smith said, “The ultimate test of an economy is the wellbeing of its people”. This rationale for a robust economy seems to have been forgotten as Robert Kennedy pointed out nearly 40 years ago:

The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children or the quality of their education nor the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry nor the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of 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 worth while.

The pursuit of economic growth as a remedy for societal ills would seem to be not only counterproductive from a health viewpoint but the strategy is being questioned from other perspectives.

The OECD High Level Advisory Group on the environment predicts, “Over the coming decades, economic growth will not be sustainable without serious attention to related environmental and social issues”.

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Ayres (1996) has said:

The evidence is growing that economic growth (such as it is) in the Western world today is benefiting only the richest people alive now, at the expense of nearly everybody else, especially the poor in this and the future generations.

The United Nations Development Program has stated:

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About the Author

Dr Bret Hart a public health physician practicing in Western Australia.

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