This article exposes the false economic concepts behind GDP, which is only the visible tip of a large iceberg of economic deceit. Describing an increase in GDP as economic growth owes its meagre validity to imprecise definition. An economy does not grow, only the quantity of fiat currency deployed grows. A successful economy progresses our condition, our wealth, our standards of living. The evolution of misleading statistics such as GDP to their current condition is only governed by their usefulness to governments, not as an objective development of sound theory by seekers of truth.
There are perhaps two plausible reasons for producing the GDP statistic, other than employing statisticians, and both have nothing to do with economics. By compiling the figures, a government keeps track of its tax base, and it can enter into the game of my-country-is-bigger-than-yours.
In international comparisons of economic performance, gross domestic product adjusted for price inflation is the most common metric used. Countries are ranked by size, and success is measured by the rate of growth in GDP. This is important to the political class.
About two years ago, I was told that the Indonesian central bank had a plan to do away with cash entirely, because it would bring unrecorded transactions into Indonesia’s GDP, promoting it from sixteenth to perhaps the thirteenth largest nation measured by GDP. I have no idea if this was true, but allegedly, this was important to the Indonesian government.
We should not be surprised if going cashless is partly motivated to give the illusion of GDP growth, in the same way that in 2014 the EU decided to add in estimated contributions from prostitution and drug dealing. These are examples of why and how GDP is manipulated to produce a goal-sought answer.
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