Flaws in our Economy - Humans are not Valued

I have been writing about money and our economy, and last Thursday I said that we had to start with our own spending patterns, and how these may be flawed.
Now I turn to flaws in our economy.

Number One - Humans are not valued
A very large number of people in our society are presently undervalued or not valued at all in monetary terms. These include the old and young, the infirm and disabled, the housewives and the many community and charity volunteers without whom many organizations would simply not survive. All of these people outside the conventional workforce often work very much harder and longer hours than many in full time employment. But they gain no financial independence or recognition within the economic framework from their toil.

I know of a wife who for two decades has selflessly cared full time for an increasingly and profoundly disabled husband. Or I think of the mother who takes a career break to raise her own children. These women both lead enormously valuable lives, but feel undervalued.

We measure a ‘healthy’ economy in terms of the material wealth or prosperity that is created by and for its working citizens, expressed in terms such as the gross domestic product (GDP), gross domestic income (GDI) or gross national product (GNP). Now in this current financial crisis the emphasis is on the need for growth in the economy. Whichever measure is used, they all put a zero valuation on the environment, on healthy citizens, on social cohesion and cultural values!

As Robert Kennedy once said:

…the (Gross National Product) does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages… 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 worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans...

And these thoughts are relevant for us all, whatever our race or color or creed.