Glaser Progress Foundation Produces YouTube Video Marking the 40th Anniversary of RFK Speech Discrediting the GDP

Forty years after Senator Robert F. Kennedy challenged the Gross Domestic Product as a measure of America’s progress and well-being, the Glaser Progress Foundation has released a YouTube video commemorating that famous speech. The video features contemporary and historic images with the voice of Senator Kennedy delivering his comments at the University of Kansas on March 18, 1968.

"Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage,” Kennedy says in the video. “It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.”

By counting sales and consumption, Kennedy argues, the GDP tells us everything about America “except that which makes life worthwhile.”

“These words couldn’t be more relevant today,” said Martin Collier of the Glaser Progress Foundation. “The GDP is our national economic report card that grades the wrong subjects. Increased cancer rates, unsustainable logging practices and natural disasters like Katrina all boost the GDP, while time spent volunteering, parenting or enriching the community is not recognized by the GDP.” View the video here.

Glaser Progress Foundation chose to create the video and post it on YouTube as a way to directly reach the public with this message that underscores their grantmaking goals. “Video can have energy and excitement,” continues Collier, “the Internet is where the eyeballs are and YouTube is a way to bypass gatekeepers and go directly to the citizens on a topic that’s very important to us. There’s no better way to communicate than through an open, multi-media platform.”

The video was released to coincide with a U.S. Senate committee hearing on March 12, 2008, entitled “Rethinking the Gross Domestic Product as a Measurement of National Strength,” questioning if the GDP is an accurate reflection of economic growth and social well-being. A webcast of the hearing can be viewed here.

For more information please visit: www.glaserprogress.org/GDP