Leigh: > > Here's one way of looking at it: > > Every time a tree falls... the GNP goes up > > Every time a cancer patient is diagnosed... the GNP goes up. > > Every pandemic... Every war... the GNP goes up. > > There's fraud in there somewhere.
Walt: > Not really. GNP is just a measure of the value of goods and services > produced in a year. Wooden objects, cancer drugs, and bombs count as goods > and services. The GNP isn't a perfect measure by any means. But blaming it > for not measuring what it is not supposed to is not reasonable. In fact, > its another side of the same coin of those who think the GDP measures > progress, rather than a small pat of it. It helps to go back to Marx (and other classical economists) on this one. GDP is a measure of exchange-value (though not in labor terms), the price of all final goods and services sold through the market during a given year (along with some market-prices that are calculated, such as the value of the services provided by owner-occupied homes). It's essentially a measure of market activity. On the other hand, measures such as the "Genuine Progress Indicator" (GPI) are an effort to measure the use-value produced by an economy. Alas, it's damned hard to measure this. What is the use-value of leisure time, for example? and how can we add it to the (negative) use-value of pollution? The Redefining Progress folks -- who calculate the GPI -- use pretty neoclassical assumptions. The wage is used to value leisure time, for example. Further, though use-value is most important from an ethical and humanist perspective, capitalism doesn't follow ethical or humanist guidelines. Instead, it follows a much more market-oriented perspective. And if the capitalists aren't happy (following market measures of profitability), they cut back on accumulation, which leads to a fall in employment. So our livelihoods and our ability to attain use-values depends crucially on market-oriented measures. -- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
