It’s been over 50 years since the great Senator Robert F Kennedy’s spoke on 18th March 1968 at the University of Kansas where he outlined why the current use of economic growth as a measure of success is fundamentally flawed. “Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things”. Unfortunately very little of how we measure success today has really changed.

You can listen to Senator Robert F Kennedy’s speech here:

Forty years ago, Robert F. Kennedy challenged the basic way we measure progress and well-being in America. Today, the Glaser Progress Foundation is raising the same questions through a new medium. The Seattle-based foundation released a new web video marking the anniversary of a famous speech in which Kennedy said the Gross Domestic Product counts "everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
 

Kennedy’s words also align with the works of economist John Maynard Keynes who wrote about the limitations of the current calculation of economic growth as a measure of nation’s wealth.

If only we understood the difference between price and value…

Read: Why price is not always equal to value'.

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