Against Gross Domestic Product

Why the golden calf of Gross Domestic Product should be rejected as a measure of America's flourishing.

The written version of this review was first published in The American Mind, and can be found here (https://americanmind.org/salvo/golden-calf-of-the-grand-old-party/)

We strongly encourage, in these days of censorship and deplatforming, all readers to bookmark our main site:

https://www.theworthyhouse.com

and to subscribe for email notifications of new posts. The Worthy House does not solicit donations or other support, or have ads. You can subscribe for email notifications here:

https://theworthyhouse.com/subscribe-by-email

Other than at the main site, you can follow Charles here:

https://x.com/TheWorthyHouse
https://gab.com/TheWorthyHouse

This and all Worthy House narrations are offered with embedded (burnt-in) captions.

"If twenty-first-century America has an idol, a graven image we collectively worship, it is Gross Domestic Product. All discussion about the flourishing of our nation is reduced to GDP, and its increase seen as an ironclad refutation of any who question whether America is, in fact, flourishing. But GDP, as today calculated, is largely fake, disconnected from actual production of value. Worse, flourishing-as-quantity is a destructive way to view our society. It was once a commonplace that the value of very many things, a mother’s love or a scarlet sunset, was immense, but unmeasurable. We have forgotten this, to our detriment. To truly make America great again, a crucial first step is dethroning GDP as a measure of our greatness. . . ."