a comment on my old message. GDP is basically a measure of what Marx called "exchange value" or value in exchange, while the GPI is an effort to measure use value. Strictly speaking, it's impossible to measure use value, but it's okay to try as long as you know the limitations. The neoclassicals interpret GDP as a measure of use-value because (at least as a first approximation in this view) the prices of products in it equal marginal utilities.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > nathan tankus wrote: >> ... From Marx's perspective, it would >> seem to me obvious that the growth that matters is growth in the net >> product per year IE gross output- depreciation costs. from this >> perspective our economy has been shrinking because we are keeping >> gross output growing by reducing stocks of wealth (ie natural >> resources) and thus reducing our ability to produce output in the >> future. in other words our planet is being liquidated. I don't think >> anyone would call a liquidation of stocks of assets income. From this >> point of view, the goal is to stop our economy from shrinking further >> and perhaps actually start growing. > > that's one of the points of calcuating the GPI. > >> by the way: GDP was not invented to be a measure of human welfare. it >> was invented to measure financial flows and understand the >> interrelated balance sheets of economic sectors. it's quite good at >> that. It's inventors in fact warned against using it as such. > > It's slightly more accurate, I think, to say that GDP was invented to > measure the circular flow of money from spending to business income to > national income, as in a Keynesian model. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your > own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
