Episode 108: How GDP Fetishism Drives Climate Crisis and Inequality

<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4i6em" data-offset-key="dsi0k-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="dsi0k-0-0"><span data-offset-key= "dsi0k-0-0">"Economists' forecasts for GDP growth in 2020 vary widely," says The Economist. "Algeria's GDP growth falls to 0.8% in 2019," one Reuters headline reads. "GDP — the broadest measure of economic activity — grew at an annual rate of just 1.9% during the third quarter," NPR warns. Everywhere we turn for economic news, the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is held up as the key proxy for prosperity and sound fiscal policy. </span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="dsi0k-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4i6em" data-offset-key="69put-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="69put-0-0"><span data-offset-key="69put-0-0">Since its codification as the new gold standard for measuring prosperity at the Bretton Wood conference in 1944, the GDP has been the most popular metric used by American and British media when measure a nation’s prosperity. The GDP, and its close cousin, the Gross National Product, have not been without its critics for decades, but prying it from its top position as The Most Important Policy Goal has been an impossible task. Despite many labor activists, environmentalists and economists leveling critiques at its myopic, capitalist ideology, the metric has remained central to how the media and lawmakers determine fiscal policy. </span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="69put-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4i6em" data-offset-key="deula-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-