The film, "Who's Counting" traces Marilyn Waring's quest to explore how the fate of women and of the earth are irrevocably tied up with the deadly pursuit of economic growth. This film was a secret favorite for those who looked for an intelligent explanation of the connection between economics and war. Marilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. Re-elected three times she soon became chair of the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee, the sole budget, appropriations, and public accounts committee of Parliament.
This segment is about war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. When John Maynard Keynes and Richard Stone invented the GDP formula during WWII they explicitly designed is as a system of: "how to pay for the war". This British system was imposed on the world in 1953. No country may be a member of the UN, deal with the IMF or World Bank unless they do their national accounting based on the GDP"
And some say that unlimited growth along with globalization has driven the wars and environmental destruction of the past 60 plus years. In spite of the magnitude of the problem with Growth and GDP accounting there is an encouraging aspect. If a global system can be designed by two economists, Mr. Keynes and M. Stone, and if it can get imposed - not so long ago - in 1953 - it is possible and necessary to design a different system and set a date for change in the near future.
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