830
submitted 9 months ago by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/memes@slrpnk.net
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] RedAggroBest@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Calling that propaganda is far fetched. It was the standard because it gave the best measure of economic strength before the information age gave us easy ways to gather other measures.

It's a relic of how things used to be and needs to be reevaluated.

[-] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 9 months ago

GDP is good metric to measure industrial output of a country. However for any sort economic activity, which does not include exchanging money, it does not work. A homestead farmer, who is mainly self sufficient, besides selling some goods on the market, is in a much better position then a clothes factory working earning the same amount of money. Both would contribute about the same to GDP. Another one would be the very simple fact that having a natural disaster usually increases GDP a year later or so, due to increased spending on rebuilding. That clearly is not a sign of economic strength of the country though.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Many of the prominent, public uses of GDP would be better replaced with life expectancy, which has been around since 1660. And if you don’t like that one, we’ve had lots of much better economic data for the past 50 years, so take your pick. Yet we still look at GDP and little else to measure how successful the economy is.

GDP in and of itself may have some validity in measuring specific types of economic activity, but its use as a singular number to measure overall well-being is propaganda and always has been.

[-] RedAggroBest@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Literally all points by Nicola Sturgeon in her TED talk. I recommend it.

[-] DoYouNot@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

The reason it's not been reevaluated it what makes it propagandistic. It's wrong in clear ways, but it's not been abandoned because it's still useful to the beneficiaries of the status quo.

this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
830 points (96.3% liked)

solarpunk memes

2823 readers
489 users here now

For when you need a laugh!

The definition of a "meme" here is intentionally pretty loose. Images, screenshots, and the like are welcome!

But, keep it lighthearted and/or within our server's ideals.

Posts and comments that are hateful, trolling, inciting, and/or overly negative will be removed at the moderators' discretion.

Please follow all slrpnk.net rules and community guidelines

Have fun!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS