It is a common statement today that in our modern societies we care too much about growth and need another intellectual framework that can guide policies and populations to more worthwhile values and sustainability. Johan Norberg is critically examining some of the alternatives to the traditional development indicator, the Gross Domestic Product growth.
His conclusions are that replacing GDP with another preferred index of well-being and life satisfaction would not add to our knowledge but it would rather reduce the amount of information available to us. GDP is actually providing a rough estimate of our possibilities as a society, what we can do and how many problems we can solve. This is why GDP correlates strongly with most of the things that most people want: economic security, improved education, better health, longer lives and less poverty. This is no coincidence. When we are able to do more things, we usually do what seems more important to us, both as individuals and as societies. Click here to read the article.
