The myth of GDP (2)

II. Measuring progress

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Behind every accounting system of indicators there are not only social conventions but mostly social choices.

GDP cartogram © Worldmapper · Click on image for a larger version

How to measure progress?
The introduction of the concept of GDP was first developed in the nineteenth century when Adam Smith highlighted the need to assess the exchange.
For over 200 years the concept of progress has been identified with economic growth – to the point of being confused with it. That is inaccurate since one can not assimilate under the same umbrella such disparate concepts as progress of customs background, human capacity to improve control of its own destiny, progress of science and technology or the spread of knowledge.
The term progress in the nineteenth century identified the role of transforming human nature radically to almost deny it (Hegel): while I transform the world I transform myself. The idealistic Hegel’s vision contrasts with other economists such as Jean-Baptiste Say who identified consumption and progress. Through consumption man sharpens his faculties and moves away from the raw state.
There is therefore a theoretical and bibliographic production, which still weighs on our shoulders, and according to which production and consumption are quintessential civilizing acts. Say it’s true. Yet they are not the only.

Who the progress is intended for?
Since the dawn of capitalism, back in the early nineteenth century, every generation has embraced the concept of progress without caring much what future generations would dare.
A more current assessment should now be opposed: Our collective wealth is the durable sum of individual utilities. What matters is the permanence of our societies over time, their sustainability, their sustainable development: each generation owes a heritage of culture, social relations, a natural heritage. Hence, the need to encourage the development of this heritage and carry out the inventory in order to transmit to the next generation a heritage as much extensive.
But what inventory? And starting from what unit of measure?

Progress and quality of life
The report from the Stigkitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission (International Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress) proposed the concept of income or net income (and even global income) that integrates i.e. household tasks and leisure time activities. The problem is to monetize them, because how to quantify the quality of life? Or if you prefer, how measuring happiness?
Given these constraints it becomes increasingly necessary to target more objective indicators that tend toward a goal of social development – the goal of social health from Jany-Catrice and Miringoff – as decent housing, durable health, which would cover the progress of this wealth

Two explanations to consider: Primo, there is no economic basis that does not come preceded by ecological and anthropological foundations, or both at once. Any situation that endangers this heritage is handicapping the potential for future economic progress. Thus, the main information we can expect from an indicator is that it alerts us of any significant fraud on the asset. Secundo: quantification is a tool for the qualification and not vice versa. What characterizes a democratic society is its ability to discuss their possible options and values – which is true for a political community endowed with a motto like “liberty – equality – fraternity”, as for other subsystems. By subordinating quantification to qualification we are pointing towards a double right: scoring in another way or otherwise not scoring at all — as well as the odds of discussing the qualifications without regard to the reductionist optics of quantification.

Even though being limited, GDP is an indicator that has allowed access to a multilateral dialogue which is embodied into international relations: in this sense, the rationale of the GDP is to recognize the specific weight of countries like India, Brazil, China or Russia which will be more fairly represented in the IMF, the World Bank or WTO. This indicator allows therefore enriching the politically very intricate geostrategic debate.

Thus, the Stigkitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission anticipates power ratios to evolve within a comparative logic. That was the genesis of GDP in the postwar period. And the big issues that postwar societies face are indeed industrial reconstruction – but they neglect other more fundamental questions, namely: how could it be that the worst atrocities has been able to birth within a cultured and educated civilization?