Media Clipping — July 22, 1998, The Cape Breton Post

New ‘progress’ makes progress

The issue: GPI an answer to GDP.

We suggest: Trick is to apply new yardstick.

THE GENUINE PROGRESS Index (GPI) has a quaint, 19th century ring to it. But it's actually an alternative to the notion of "progress" measured by economic growth, capital, technology, the exploitation of resources and similar material gains. The nonprofit group GPI Atlantic has released the first in a series of 20 studies aimed at defining a GPI for Nova Scotia, a pilot project which could become a model for the country.

The first report shows that Nova Scotians are the leading volunteers in Canada. We volunteer an average of three hours and 23 minutes a week (compared to a national average of two hours and 40 minutes). That 134 million hours annually is worth $2 billion or 81,000 jobs, nearly 10 per cent of the province's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the standard index of economic health.

The GPI assigns value to activities such as volunteerism, and subtracts social, environmental and other costs that either aren't counted in traditional indices or are counted as gains when they're actually losses. Environmental degradation and resource depletion, for example, suppress the GPI.

The merit in such an index is evident to all but the most blinkered ideologues. If nothing else, the project elevates the idea to academic and official legitimacy; Statistics Canada is supportive, as are the funding agencies—the province and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

But it will be the work of generations to supplant GDPtype with GPItype benchmarks in all aspects of policy decision making. Developing the GPI is a statistical exercise; learning how to use it is mental revolution worthy of the 21st century.

Our system of economic valuation is bankrupt. The effects show up not only on the large scale but also on an individual level, in the sense that monetary reward has almost nothing to do with the social value of work. As Victoria County municipal councillor Lawrence Barron put it in a recent opinion piece (Don't Give Up on Caring Society My View, May 30): "Most jobs are part of a game that decides who gets what out of the wealth created by our economic system."

A job—or, more generally, work—should be more than that. By redefining what is of value, we redefine the individual's contribution. The resulting sense of individual selfworth ought to equate to a point or two on the GPI.

Copyright © 1998, The Cape Breton Post

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