Recontexualizing Economics for Sustainability (and other topics)
World population growth and rapid economic development in the less developed countries has put inexorable pressure on the value-chain economy. Over the past 40 years we have recognized that we are exhausting our fossil fuels, mines, soils, forests, and fisheries. The value chain economy is dyin
GDP is killing us. What we call Gross Domestic Product is an attempt to sum all the value added, in every step of production, of every monetary good or service within our national economy. But GDP doesn’t measure the standard of living of anybody. And that’s where it fails us and leads us into ruin.
It is time to put aside, explicitly and decisively, the objective of higher GDP. GDP measures quantity, not quality of production. GDP presumes that a growth in production is a growth in quality of life, when in fact we have reached a point that the opposite is true. Not even our current level of goods production can be sustained, much less continual increases.
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