-----Original Message----- From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 12:08 AM Subject: [PEN-L:11736] Re: GDP is unscientific and unfair for poor people. >There's a large and growing literature on alternatives to GDP as a measure >of "economic progress." For example, a San Francisco-based think-tank >called REDEFINING PROGRESS measured a "Genuine Progress Indicator" which >takes into account increasing inequality, increasing pollution, etc. (as >negative factors) for the US, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Not >surprisingly, the US growth process doesn't look very good when measured in >this way. Not surprisingly, the orthodox economists dismissed the research. >(BTW, it's possible to dismiss part of their research and accept the rest, >creating a modified Genuine Progress Indicator. As far as I know, I'm the >only one who has pursued this lead. If not, I'd like to know.) > >The GPI of course assumes that there is such a thing as "progress." Crucial >to their efforts was the idea that you can attach dollar values to >pollution damage, the effects of crime, traffic congestion, etc., etc., so >that they can be added up to produce a single number. To me, this is like >adding apples and oranges; use-values can't be added.However, it does >provide a useful antidote to the adulation of real GDP in the press and by >unthinking orthodox economists. (Most serious economists know that "real >GDP" is at best a guestimate of "real progress," since the nature of the >goods produced changes, the quality can fall and rise, etc., etc.) > >The (nominal) GDP, on the other hand, is based on the reasonable assumption >that one can add up market revenues. But it's a measure of the size of the >market, not of "progress." A country that is in the process of >marketization -- like China -- can have a rising GDP simply because >nonmarket production becomes marketized. Of course, the resulting rising >GDP is then trumpeted as a "success," as "progress," etc. In the US, if the >public libraries are shut down so that people have to buy books, that would >likely promote GDP. > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & >http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html Therefore all bourgeois economists are cheaters. It is because they disguise economic reality and appear to do so deliberately. They use the GDP, (Gross Domestic Product), to measure the whole economic status of a country and this results in the government paying no attention to the living standards of poor people. So poverty is perpetuated. Sincerely, Ju-chang He E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SHENZHEN, P.R. CHINA Welcome to My Homepage <http://sites.netscape.net/juchang/homepage.html>
