GDP is unscientific and unfair for poor people.

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Sep 2 09:46:20 PDT 1999


Charles Brown wrote:


>Since, capitalism is not about to be unfair ,doesn't demanding that
>it be fair, that we not use GDP, seem liike a step in bringing along
>people who don't quite realize yet that capitalism is not about to
>be unfair and GDP is being used to hoodwink them ?

Hoodwink? Capitalism is about the accumulation of wealth in money form. GDP, and its associated measures, is one account of that process. Capitalism, like the national income accounts, doesn't give a damn about poor people. How is that hoodwinking? It's not unscientific either, in that it's done according to rigorous definitions using tested, disclosed, and reproducible techniques. It measures what it sets out to measure.


> Doesn't Chang's interrogation of GDP make a good step forward for
>those without socialist consciousness, and who would not pay
>attention to more "sophisticated" understandings and critiques of
>capitalism ?

GDP isn't a measure of human happiness. In fact the GDP can rise as people are made worse off. No one's denying that here, right? What's problematic are the assertions that it's an unscientific fraud. Past life therapy is an unscientific fraud; national income accounting isn't. It's bourgeois social science.


> Do most people come to oppose capitalism by reading Marxist
>analyses or critical analyses using bourgeosie concepts ,such as
>interrogating "GDP" ?

Dunno. What do you think?


>
>How well would you do in an e-mail discussion that was all in
>Chinese ? All of y'all ?

Terribly, at least in my case, since I don't understand a word of Chinese. But this isn't a language problem, it's a point problem. We've heard the same undeveloped assertion several times; I for one would like to see it developed a bit more.

Doug



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