Sublime

There is now a fast-growing list of alternative metrics, including the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and the Genuine Progress Indicator, both of which set out to correct GDP for social and ecological costs. And this new thinking is beginning to trickle into policy too. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern captured headlines in 2019 w

The most influential pessimist in modern economic thinking has no doubt been Thomas Robert Malthus, an English pastor writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Malthus famously warned against trying to improve the lot of the poor, and even against the chances for long-term economic progress. He argued that following any rise in

In December 2010,

There is no escaping it: we have to create a new definition of value, one not based on endless consumption or described by flawed statistics like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a statistic that omits many of the most important things in life like environmental and social health. Lest you think this is some tree-hugging ideology whose ulterior polit

For reasons difficult to understand, when the creditworthiness of a country is evaluated, only one year’s revenue (GDP) is measured against total debt. It is as if the total of an individual’s debt, from home mortgage, car loans, and student debt, were measured against one year’s income. Obviously, that would be irrational.

Unlike capitalism it believes that the free market, without periodic redistributions, creates inequalities that are ultimately unsustainable because they deprive some individuals of independence and hope.