>>> Stephen E Philion <philion at hawaii.edu> 09/03/99 02:13PM >>>
Charles, It appears that you have ignored Wojtek's point?
(((((((((((
Charles: You seem to be deceived by that appearance. I have seen and crtiicized his point. He is wrong on the point he is making , which I understand quite clearly.
)))))))))
GDP is a concept that can be deployed...the question is who is deploying it?
(((((((((
Charles: The concept itself has characteristics that allow it to be misused by bourgeois media propgandists. The fact that in econ text books it is explained or deployed honestly doesn't mean it does not underlie mass media reports which slur over its limitations and use it to say "the economy is great" which is what I have been hearing in the monopoly media for several years. I don't care if a few econ majors and profs are clear on it. Most people are not, so its deployment is in fact propagandistic and ideological in the main.
CB
(((((((((((((((((
Stephen: What is all this fair and unfair discourse about if people don't have down pat who it is that is in control of the game anyway (i.e. how capitalism works, even in nominally socialist countries). In China, eg., it is not at all uncommon to hear economists or other scholars rightly complain about unfair WTO entry conditions and then in the next breath tell you that more privatization is the only way to go to improve the economic situation for 'everyone'...
On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Charles Brown wrote:
Wojtek wrote:
> >
> > As I argued in other postings to this thread, science has to be analytical
> > rather than politically correct. I argued thatusing diffrent indicators of
> > economic growth and human development is mor analytica than using a single
> > conflated measure. I have also shown that gdp can be used in a very
> > critical way,
>
> ((((((((((((((
> for example by serving as the base for comparing social
> > welfare spending among different countries (i.e. what share of national
> > wealth is being spent on human development).
> >
> > so it is not the indicator itself, but how it used that is fair or unfair
> > to poor people.
> >
> (((((((((((((((
>
> Charles: Right. It is used to hoodwink.
>
>
> CB
>
>
>