Gross Domestic Care- GDC
Does GDP really measure what is essential? How do we know what is essential? During the pandemic we were forced to realize that the people most essential to keeping our lives and our economy going are the entire service industry. During this health crisis, nurses took the spotlight. But we also realized that the trash needed to be picked up, that kids needed schooling, that busses needed to run, shelves needed stocking and so on and so on.
For a few months we remembered to thank the cashier for risking their lives to ring up our groceries. We cheered from the balconies at the end of the day for medical workers.
We realized that it didn’t matter if Apple didn’t produce a new iphone (though they did) or if another version of Windows was released. So much of the high tech, high pay work, just didn’t matter. So society adjusted it’s values and we began to respect and reward the jobs that provide true value.
What????
No we didn’t.
We did not raise the federal minimum wage, we did not hire twice as many teachers, we did not create universal healthcare (during a pandemic), we did not pass mandatory sick leave (during a pandemic), we did not improve working conditions in food processing plants…
We offered praise and prayers. But little else.
The legislative measures mentioned above are the bare minimum that most modern societies offer to all workers. They don’t really need to be discussed or debated. Only a curious commitment to modern feudalism leaves the US as a colonial economy preying upon itself. (A discussion for another day.)
Why is it so difficult for us to recognize what is essential and to assign it value? One problem is the way that we measure economic health. What we measure grows and can be assigned value. Everything else is invisible, unvalued and in danger of disappearing. We measure Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the stock market index. Do either of these measure what is essential?
David Graeber explores the value of work in this talk about his book “Bullsh*t Jobs” based on an article he wrote in 2013. Are the best paying jobs actually the most important to society? Or have we confused the good of big business with the good of society? It is no wonder, as every day we measure business good through tracking production and consumption. The more we produce, the more we consume, the more money changes hands. As that is all we measure, it is no wonder that most people think that is the only measure of a healthy economy.
But our own lived experience of what is essential during the pandemic gives lie to the mythology. We have seen with our own eyes that the caring professions are the ones most necessary to society. (We have also watched the stock market boom during high unemployment, death and suffering.) Graeber’s talk made me think about how thoroughly we are indoctrinated to NOT value caring work, otherwise it’s value would be so obvious.
Economists claim that as most caring work is unskilled, it has lower value. In the world of supply and demand, there is a greater supply of these skills than there is a demand. But how far does that argument hold up? How many low paying, caring jobs require advanced degrees? Social workers, legal aid, special-ed teachers are just a few. How many require the special traits of patience and empathy- of which there is a short supply and high demand? How many of these fields have too few workers to get the job done? The supply and demand justification is only valid because we make it valid.
As a pop-economist I have studied many alternatives to the GDP from gross happiness to co-ops. But Graeber has an even simpler idea. Work should be valued for the level of caring it provides. Everything of value is based on caring for others, even a bridge is constructed with care that others can pass safely across it. Caring provides some form of freedom for others. Freedom is the ultimate American value.
Let this idea percolate. Look around at the work you see, observe the money that goes to it and think about the real value to real people it produces. What would our country look like if we assigned value based on a caring quotient? If we measured the Gross Domestic Care provided each quarter? If infinite growth was an infinite growth in the level of care and meaning we provided each other?