Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic system
Marilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. She was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. The international trade in arms is the biggest growth industry of all. Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic system. The death, homelessness, injury, poverty and starvation caused by the use of these weapons is not even registered as a deficit.
This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the Philippines shows that the labor of women feeding their children with subsistence agriculture is of no value, while sexual slavery that brings tourists to the country is counted as valuable in the GDP. Waring ends by proposing a time based accounting system and recommends that women take over the political process by demanding gender parity.
Credit: Marilyn Waring, Terre Nash and the National Film Board of Canada
Location: New Zealand, Canada, US, Africa
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 39.8MB)
