GDP and war

Theordore Dalrymple puts it succinctly:

An increased GDP, however distributed, is perfectly compatible with a deteriorated, even much deteriorated, way of life: and, presumably, a lowering of GDP is compatible with an improved, even a much improved, way of life. Of GDP and happiness, 'Library of Law and Liberty', 2 January

Unfortunately, in the absence of any coherent other targets, increasing Gross Domestic Product (or GDP per capita) become the de facto objective of most democratic governments.  But, as an end in itself, GDP has numerous flaws. Its targeting institutionalises our confusion between ends and means. Economic growth should not be end in itself. At best, it is a means towards certain ends. Growth in GDP implies only a growth in economic activity. It does not distinguish between helpful and harmful economic activity. It puts no value on any activity that bypasses the monetary economy. So it ignores leisure time, the environment, crime, health, and other contributors to well-being that are meaningful, or even essential, to natural persons.

We urgently need goals that are far less randomly tied to human and environmental well-being. I make some tentative suggestions in my book and on SocialGoals.com. Hand-in-hand with meaningful targets goes a sensible way of achieving them. Our current systems are failing in both respects, and the failures are becoming too spectacular to ignore for much longer. In these increasingly dire circumstances, Social Policy Bonds could be an answer. Under a bond regime, policymaking would be something with which ordinary people could engage. The bonds would target meaningful goals, with which we could all identify. These goals would be ends - targets inextricably linked to well-being - rather than real or supposed means towards achieving them. The bonds would inject the market's incentives and efficiencies into the achievement of our goals. And because they reward the achievement of our goals, rather than activities, they do not rely on our knowing how our ends are to be achieved or who will achieve them. This means that we can target problems, like war, that we have no idea (yet) how to solve.

One thing seems certain: however remote a World Peace Bond regime seems now, a world without war within our current, corrupt, haphazard system, is even less likely.