Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970213083543.0072e00c@ilhawaii.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 08:35:46 -1000 From: "Jay Hanson mailto:mailto:j@qmail.com" <j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: THEORY: Population and Development -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
At 01:52 PM 2/12/97 -0500, you wrote:>their populations. If development is such a bad thing in the current
The first step in any reform package must be to adopt an objective measure of "bad things" and good things.
Neoclassical economics admits to NO objective measures of human welfare. Thus, when an economist says "trade makes people better off", he probably means that trade makes his own personal finances better off.
Since our society has accepted no objective measure of welfare, we are forced to rely on gross domestic product (GDP) as the de facto measure of our welfare.
But a close look at the GDP reveals that what passes for welfare, is actually the satisfaction of more and more trivial wants, while creating more and more unwanted costs that are destroying both our life support and social systems. For example, the costs of treatment of cigarette-induced cancer, pollution-induced emphysema, and television-induced crime show up in the GDP as increased welfare.
There is now strong evidence that the U.S. economy is making us poorer by increasing unwanted costs faster than it increases benefits.
See: http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page11.htm
Jay