Image by: Kamiel Choi from Pixabay
A great article in The Conversation by Katharina Richeter outlining “degrowth” as an alternative set og goals for economic planning and policy. GDP has stubbornly hung around as a default measure, driven by uninformed media and possibly those with an ideological/political reason to support it. But for over 50 years, prominent politicians and economists have been calling for the end of this poor tool which only considers output, not impact. A simple example would be to ask just how helpful is it for a country to increase its GDP by producing lots of bombs?
Degrowth essentially asks us to start prioritizing the things that actually matter to us and properly reflect whether our economies are working for us. And it is egalitarian, democratic and fits with environmental sustainability targets.
Perhaps it’s time we all started taking the lead from Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness index.
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