If you keep track of GDP, you'll miss the forest for the trees.
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." ― Oscar Wilde
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is making plenty of headlines as people patiently wait for large corporations to make some decisions with their wellbeing in mind, for their governments to care about their welfare, for central banks to tweak their monetary policies, and for broader economies to "heat up" -- to, ultimately, deliver jobs and prosperity for as many people as possible.
Alas, if only modern life were that simple. In reality, GDP has become a completely redundant statistic that only serves societal planners rather than individual human beings.
To truly determine the most effective/best way of ascertaining group outcomes, it is essential to consider philosophy, Natural Law, and morality. Fundamentally, regardless of the way people measure output on a collective level, it is every individual who forms an existential view of the world around them, not groups.
To truly determine the most effective/best way of ascertaining group outcomes, it is essential to consider philosophy, Natural Law, and morality. Fundamentally, regardless of the way people measure output on a collective level, it is every individual who forms an existential view of the world around them, not groups.
Everyone has no choice but to accept one of two outlooks: either the collective is preferred over the individual, or vice versa. This is a nuanced consideration people do not realise they must make (and unfortunately, the vast majority have picked the former). People have tacitly or expressly accepted that it's OK to make an individual suffer for the collective to breathe easier.
One for All, or, One for Self
Suppose we assume that collectives do take preference. In that case, GDP is a superb tool, and only improving data collection accuracy is required -- a reckoning and an evaluation of what is actually "best" doesn't need to occur. If the collective trumps the individual, then measuring the total sums of various things makes sense.
However, suppose we assume that individuals take precedence over groups. In that case, sovereignty can only be found where "agency" is found, i.e., within the individual mind and body of an individual human being. Therefore, concepts such as rights, freedom, tastes, preferences, guilt, regret, etc -- can only occur from an individual's perspective. A group cannot think or feel or do, or be responsible for something; only individuals can.
Under the second assumption, measuring what aggregate output (GDP) or other headline figures are becomes largely inconsequential. If every individual has sovereign rights equal to what a nation or a monarch currently has, they could issue their own currency, be free from all mandatory taxation, and therefore, would likely concentrate on statistics that point to what really matters in life. Namely, their own prosperity, efficiency, health, vitality, fitness, longevity, purity, and excellence.
Objective Morality is Essential for Natural Order
If people knew that harming others was an inherent wrong in Nature, they wouldn't do it. However, most people do not know this and consider "might" to be "right". Moreover, they believe their intentions matter more than their actions.
There are plenty of ways to measure actual values of prosperity and indications of aggregate performance, BUT ONLY IF an objective standard is recognised and used as a valid benchmark.
Currently, there are no "objective" principles for health, prosperity, wealth, etc -- every individual/country/region picks its own version, and if given enough time, harmful behaviour dressed up as fun or profit quickly becomes commonplace and becomes known as "culture" and "civilisation". When in fact, such behaviours are rather uncivilised and foolish. Good examples here would be legalised abortions, pharmaceuticals, synthetic diets, pollution, gene editing, and animal cruelty (and the list could go on).
If, as both individuals and an economy, people embraced the true principles behind healthy living (natural law, healthy food, no synthetics, no need for government), then all the ills of the world would dissipate away. Alas, the issue is that people simply do not believe that objective principles in accordance with Nature actually exist. And they've also bought into the lie that governments are required for people to be safe while living in groups.
The spread of moral relativism and atheism to the point of being the most dominant worldview (especially among the academic class) has made it almost impossible for people to realise that most economic statistics, including GDP, are measuring the wrong thing. They are measuring "growth" but not whether that growth is healthy, i.e., whether something is growing straight.
Anyone could easily dump a bunch of chemicals into a field and increase the rate of growth of various plants -- but those plants will become warped, mutated, and deviate from the natural order. They would be unhealthy abominations that cause illness. That's the agribusiness industry in a nutshell, and it's symbolic of the broader economy -- ill health is considered OK as long as it generates commercial growth (GDP), production, expansion, larger, bigger, more, more, more.
Another symbolic example is pharmaceuticals. As an extreme example to prove the principle -- if you imagine every person being diagnosed with a ghastly illness that will mean years of pain and suffering -- that's clearly a bad thing for individuals and on aggregate in society --- but if this happened, pharma stocks would appreciate immensely, they would generate larger tax revenues. At the same time, GDP would rise as more doctors are being hired, more people are spending money, more goods are being bought, etc. But as you can see, this is insanity and not civilisation.
Clearly, the architects of society have become so obsessed with GDP, to the point of creating economic monstrosities with a self-reinforcing compunction to win a race to the bottom.
There are plenty of ways to measure actual values of prosperity and indications of aggregate performance, BUT ONLY IF an objective standard is recognised and used as a valid benchmark.
Currently, there are no "objective" principles for health, prosperity, wealth, etc -- every individual/country/region picks its own version, and if given enough time, harmful behaviour dressed up as fun or profit quickly becomes commonplace and becomes known as "culture" and "civilisation". When in fact, such behaviours are rather uncivilised and foolish. Good examples here would be legalised abortions, pharmaceuticals, synthetic diets, pollution, gene editing, and animal cruelty (and the list could go on).
Why GDP is Surplus to Requirements
GDP is a nominal and transitory statistic that merely shows a static image of something without any other qualifier or how it relates to practical, real-world events. As a crude analogy, it is like a photo instead of a motion picture. Moreover, the concept of GDP only benefits a particular layer of society rather than serving as a useful tool for society as a whole. Having access to accurate GDP stats benefits industrialists and multinationals far more than schoolteachers, for example.
There are plenty of statistics that can give various insights, but GDP is used as a barometer (and policy trigger) for almost everything. Alternatives to GDP are multiple, including percentage of resources used efficiently, ratio of goods recycled, individual productivity, local environmental sustainability, child literacy, number of doctor visits before the age of 10, among others.
However, health and environmental sustainability isn't "cool", it's not easy money, and there's no quick buck in it. As a result, the majority of people gravitate toward quick bucks and don't stop to ask whether it may be wrong to do so. That's the larger problem: people just don't care about what is healthy and "good", but only that which suits the agenda of their collective.
There are plenty of statistics that can give various insights, but GDP is used as a barometer (and policy trigger) for almost everything. Alternatives to GDP are multiple, including percentage of resources used efficiently, ratio of goods recycled, individual productivity, local environmental sustainability, child literacy, number of doctor visits before the age of 10, among others.
However, health and environmental sustainability isn't "cool", it's not easy money, and there's no quick buck in it. As a result, the majority of people gravitate toward quick bucks and don't stop to ask whether it may be wrong to do so. That's the larger problem: people just don't care about what is healthy and "good", but only that which suits the agenda of their collective.
Moral Relativism Devours Like a Disease
If, as both individuals and an economy, people embraced the true principles behind healthy living (natural law, healthy food, no synthetics, no need for government), then all the ills of the world would dissipate away. Alas, the issue is that people simply do not believe that objective principles in accordance with Nature actually exist. And they've also bought into the lie that governments are required for people to be safe while living in groups.
The spread of moral relativism and atheism to the point of being the most dominant worldview (especially among the academic class) has made it almost impossible for people to realise that most economic statistics, including GDP, are measuring the wrong thing. They are measuring "growth" but not whether that growth is healthy, i.e., whether something is growing straight.
Anyone could easily dump a bunch of chemicals into a field and increase the rate of growth of various plants -- but those plants will become warped, mutated, and deviate from the natural order. They would be unhealthy abominations that cause illness. That's the agribusiness industry in a nutshell, and it's symbolic of the broader economy -- ill health is considered OK as long as it generates commercial growth (GDP), production, expansion, larger, bigger, more, more, more.
Another symbolic example is pharmaceuticals. As an extreme example to prove the principle -- if you imagine every person being diagnosed with a ghastly illness that will mean years of pain and suffering -- that's clearly a bad thing for individuals and on aggregate in society --- but if this happened, pharma stocks would appreciate immensely, they would generate larger tax revenues. At the same time, GDP would rise as more doctors are being hired, more people are spending money, more goods are being bought, etc. But as you can see, this is insanity and not civilisation.
Clearly, the architects of society have become so obsessed with GDP, to the point of creating economic monstrosities with a self-reinforcing compunction to win a race to the bottom.
It's Necessary to Admit the Obvious
There is a better way -- and it starts with accepting the simple premise that an absolute standard of health, prosperity, and what ought/should be in the world DOES exist. This standard is recognisable and can be determined by human intuition, but not by static utilitarian statistics that cannot capture or ascertain the inherent value in organic living beings. Moreover, from the statistics governments do generate, they are focusing on the wrong ones in terms of setting policy and incentivising private sector investment.
Good examples here would include policies on drugs, healthcare, and education -- all three are over-focused on short-sighted targets and chasing their own tails in attempting to deliver their objectives. They're all failures in achieving their set targets, and it's because a genuine benchmark has not been set.
What all these archaic institutions and policymakers are missing is that just like when you want to grow a tree, you don't start off by cutting out branches from wood and sticking them together with green bits of paper attached as leaves. That's just a fabrication and not the real thing.
What all these archaic institutions and policymakers are missing is that just like when you want to grow a tree, you don't start off by cutting out branches from wood and sticking them together with green bits of paper attached as leaves. That's just a fabrication and not the real thing.
The same thing has happened on a macro scale with how policymakers (led by elitist skullduggery) are trying to grow their businesses and economies. They are not doing it organically or naturally. Instead, they're forcing the issue with taxation, debt, derivatives, government policy, threats, penalties, coercion, and abuse.
The use of financial derivatives (the lovechild of GDP-focused growth merchants and state apparatchiks) is very much like pesticides; they forge an oasis today and leave a desert for tomorrow. If you look at any industry in any country, you will notice this propensity for toxicity at the expense of genuine health everywhere. It's not an accident, and it's not civilised.
What a "Good" Society Looks Like
Any true system that people should actually be proud of, rather than trying to overhaul every four years, is one where people are voluntarily first in line to offer a voluntary donation for something to be built or made.
Where the most popular celebs are celebs BECAUSE they're the most healthy, able, and wise, rather than simply the best revenue generators and marketing pin-ups. A truly good society would be where inventors, healers, and teachers of true morality are the most revered and worshipped like rock stars and athletes are today.
For that to happen, people have to understand that the individual matters more than the collective and that, according to Natural Law, it is everyone's sovereign right to make a better life for themselves without asking for government permission or a bank loan.
For that to happen, people have to understand that the individual matters more than the collective and that, according to Natural Law, it is everyone's sovereign right to make a better life for themselves without asking for government permission or a bank loan.
Billions of people have been raised with false principles and have been programmed to love materiality, accumulation, self-image worship, hedonism, and minimalism. A social engineering program of epic proportions that has left even learned academics and renowned captains of industry to lose their minds in pursuit of their little piece of the cake.
Getting off this archaic system and back onto a path towards genuine health and prosperity requires every individual to realise that Natural Laws, including how people should behave, are objective, not subjective -- they are not for us to determine, but simply to understand correctly and choose from the available options.
Getting off this archaic system and back onto a path towards genuine health and prosperity requires every individual to realise that Natural Laws, including how people should behave, are objective, not subjective -- they are not for us to determine, but simply to understand correctly and choose from the available options.
This deep spiritual awakening, in itself, takes hard work, introspection and going outside the comfort zone -- but considering how lazy, demoralised and defeatist society has become nowadays, in terms of understanding the inherent principles of life, it will be a miracle if the World Bank, the IMF, the banking sector and the cavalcade of Keynesian sycophants dropped their love of GDP anytime soon.
Written by George Tchetvertakov
