The pursuit of more has displaced the question of what it is for. And when a civilization forgets to ask that question, it continues to advance in technique while it declines in wisdom.

Numbers replaced judgment, and the gross domestic product became the supreme idol of economic life. Conceived in the 1930s to estimate wartime output and industrial capacity, GDP was never meant to represent human welfare or civilizational advancement. It counted production for the sake of mobilization, not prosperity.[vi] Yet over time, this... See more

The metric of success was no longer what was built or improved, but what the market capitalization reflected.