On 9/10/2010 10:17 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> [WS:] I would not use the GDP as the basis for measuring socialism, because
> it reflects mainly the volume of market transactions and defines away all
> non-market transactions as being "outside production boundaries." Socialism
> was not about marketization of society (as capitalism is) but about
> "material development" largely bypassing the market (that is why they had
> central planning.) Therefore, a better metric would be "material progress"
> with the reference point at the onset of socialism.
This isn't correct. GDP doesn't only include market transactions in its production boundary. When a state-employed doctor in the British NHS provides a free medical service (or an American doctor at a VA hospital), the value of the service is counted in GDP. The same is true if a factory in a centrally-planned economy produces a car or if the state produces a bridge.
SA