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by mch82 1337 days ago
GDP doesn’t need to grow indefinitely. It measures industrial output, but not wealth or prosperity. Here are economists whose perspectives you may find offer a way out of the trap it feels like we’re in:

Mariana Mazzucato (https://marianamazzucato.com) talks about the spectrum of models capitalism can take in this interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-prof-g-show-with-s....

“Betterness” by Umair Haque talks about the need for metrics that augment GDP by serving as indicators of wealth: https://store.hbr.org/product/betterness-economics-for-human... (also available on Amazon, iBooks, etc.).

The David Graeber Institute (https://davidgraeber.org/books/bullshit-jobs/) has done a lot of work to explore how we allocate labor to tasks. The book “Bullshit Jobs” is a worthwhile overview of the Institute’s research.

Edit: “Enlightenment Now” by Stephen Pinker (not an economist) is another look at progress. While Pinker acknowledges it’s possible to be born during a local minima, the book charts how things continue to improve for people across many metrics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now