Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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cannibalises the informal economy. Nowadays, a major portion of what shows
up as GDP growth is a result of either: shifting activities from the non­money
household and community economy to the money economy (for example,
restaurant meals replacing home­made meals); depleting natural resource
stocks by borrowing resources from the future (for example, cutting down
indigenous forests); or defending ourselves against the consequences of growth
and fixing past blunders (for example, cleaning up toxic dumps or
soundproofing homes to keep out increased traffic noise).
During the 1980s, an organisation emerged in San Francisco called Redefining
Progress (RP), whose aims were to work with a broad array of partners to shift
the economy and public policy towards sustainability. RP does this by
measuring the real state of our economy, our environment and social justice
with tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator (see page 000) and the ‘ecological
footprint’ (see page 000). In October 1995, Atlantic Monthly published an article
by the founders of Redefining Progress, Clifford Cobb, Ted Halstead and
Jonathan Rowe. The title of the article was ‘If the GDP is Up, Why is America
Down?’, and it went on to say, ‘The gross domestic product (GDP) is such a
crazy mismeasure of the economy that it portrays disaster as gain. A new
economic barometer might transform our society.’ 14
Why Do People Still Support GDP?
If GDP is such a poor indicator for measuring progress, why is it still accepted
by economists, politicians and financiers? Again, it all comes back to our
unhealthy system of money creation, which demands that profits must always