Competitions always need a way to keep score. Schools, colleges, and hospitals have ranking and league tables, athletes use time, and companies compare stock price rises and market share. When it comes to international competition, nations use gross domestic product (GDP) to show how big their economies are and how energetic their growth rate is.
Just like all competitive measures, GDP defines the game by what it measures—and what it doesn’t. Like any single instrument trying to capture the value of a complex activity, it leaves a lot out.
As JFK reminded us many years ago, ‘Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children or the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are American.’
Like all scores, GDP draws attention to one thing—spending—and erases the rest.
National economies are not zero-sum games in which one’s gain is another’s loss.
From the book by Heffernan, Margaret. “A Bigger Prize.”
What are other metrics, more relevant to greatness of a nation? I read Bhutan measures Gross National Happinesses. Would average life span be useful metric?