growth: De Long view

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 06:03 AM 9/9/99 -0700, Brad deLong wrote:
>
>One view is that the measurement problems--the conceptual 
>problems--are so overwhelming that all one can say is that we are 
>richer (in a material welfare sense) than those who subsisted on pork 
>fat and bad corn moonshine, but that the qualitative difference is 
>such that we can't even make a quantitative estimate. My view is that 
>we can make a lot of quantitative estimates--a lot of very different 
>quantitative estimates, ranging from a factor of 5 through a factor 
>of infinity--and that trying to think through what these different 
>estimates mean and what assumptions they implicitly make is a way to 
>start the ball rolling for a truly great economic history class...
>

I agree with the quantification part of your statement.  That is, it is
worthwhile to compare the volume of what was produced per capita, say ca
1700 to the volume of what is being produced per capita now.  But what
makes you think that the concept of GDP - which equates volume with market
value - is a valid measurement of what was produced in 1700?  

Isn't it the same as using the concept of IQ, which quantifies human
performance against an arbitrary standard that makes sense only in the
context of what passes for legitimate knowledge in a 20th WASP century
society (which makes it inherently racist and sexist as well), to measure
the progress in human intelelctual development since the beginning of history?

wojtek