to Quality in Life,
Beyond GDP
Rising GDP is not in itself a measure of progress. It misleads because
GDP (a) considers only prices and (b) includes items irrespective of
impact. Some will act adversely while others may be burdensome.
Perceived performances - or qualities Q - can capture this. Unlike prices
they can be construed negatively. This simple conceptual difference opens
the door to achieving the measurement that Robert Kennedy dreamed of.
So when product Qs corresponding to adverse personal or communal
burdens are subtracted out and made negative the number Net Sum:Q
will trend differently than GDP. It can stagnate or fall even as GDP rises,
yet upwardly respond to contextural improvement in quality in life.
Recent attempts to use indicators are flawed. In economic parlance they
are ordinal and therefore subject to stagnation due to Easterlin's Paradox.
Because Net Sum:Q is cardinal, it carries the potential to steer us toward
quality in life better than any other economic measure.
Sum:Q also explains living history experiments where modern families are
enthusiastically transported back to cope with old technology (from 1900,
for example) yet soon yearn to return to today's quality.
