RichieAllen.co.uk Forum

Full Version: GDP, and what it really stands for
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
So what is growth? 

It is merely the measurement of the amount of money that is spent for goods and services in any year. This figure is what we call Gross National Product (GNP) or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

Therefore ‘growth’ is the sum total of all the positive and negative events in the world every year that involve money being spent, that’s all.

The money spent on improving the quality of people’s lives and that spent on wars, road accidents, and responding to oil tanker catastrophes are all measured exactly the same by this system, because all are adding to the economic tally –GDP. 

This is plainly farcical. 

What we call growth tells us nothing, except how absurd our economic indicators are. When we speak of an end to growth or we say there are no limits to growth, we have to ask “What kind of growth? And the growth of what?” 

Of course there are limits to growth if you are talking about the constant expansion of what we take from the planet and throw at her in pollution. But, when the true understanding of physics and technology is revealed and introduced in our everyday lives, we will see that this suppressed knowledge can give us the warmth and power we need for a comfortable life for all the peoples of the world without dismantling the planet. 

Under this system, the growth in take-make-and-throwaway and mine-burn-pollute can slow down and end, while –at the same time –everyone in the world has a better, not a more primitive standard of life. The end to growth in take-make-and-throwaway and the expansion of better living conditions for all are not a contradiction. They are made possible by ending the suppression of scientific knowledge that will solve the environmental and human ‘problems’ which have been engineered to control us. 

What is clear is that the use of environmentalism to justify centralised control continues apace.