You are Spanish. Spain’s GDP per capita is much lower than that in the USA, yet Spain’s life expectancy is 5 years longer than that of USA’s and Spain outperforms USA in many other social indicators. There’s much more than GDP in prosperity. Past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down *or becomes irrelevant*, at least for many indicators.
The problem with macro GDP skepticism is that it implies micro personal income skepticism, and that is totally implausible (among other consequences of personal income skepticism, imagine how irrelevant becomes unequality for USA where more than 20.000 per capita income is so prevalent).
Those who tell me that more income will not make me happier are telling me that I do not know how to use additional freedom. It is a very marxist position: as (Groucho) Marx said: “Who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?””
Regarding Spain, of course, many British people retire here: you have the Sun, the sunny people, and structural unemployment levels (or the realtive lack of tech and other “high end” jobs) do not affect you.
What about life expectancy by income bucket in the US? How objective is that relation?
It looks that income matters in the US, but then it does not matter across countries…
The US is an extremely diverse society, with extreme outcomes. You have a Bulgaria and a Denmark in each city, we have them in different countries. In fact the positive relation at the micro level between health and income shall be more relevant that aggregate comparisons, that can be extremely affected by ecological fallacies.
Of course, there is a lot causal reversion in the income—welfare relation; both people and countries that are richer are often better in extra economic terms.
But you cannot separate material and non material prosperity. It is the loop of activity and personal virtue what allows people to became affluent, and income gives the resources to have a fulfilling life.
What were the social and moral consequences of stagnating socialism in the USRR? Demoralization and collapse.
Macro growth can be disputed, because is removed from personal experience, but parents always try to put their children in the path of (micro) growth…
It looks that income matters in the US, but then it does not matter across countries…
Well, this is the whole point. Some ways to organise countries achieve better social outcomes without the need of better GDP. You don’t have Bulgaria and Denmark in each US city in this sense, which is the sense that counts in this conversation.
But you cannot separate material and non material prosperity.
This is not what degrowthers claim and it is not what I claimed: “*Past a certain point*, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down *or becomes irrelevant*, at least for many indicators.” Logarithmic plots show pretty straight lines. This basically means exactly that past a certain point the relationship becomes irrelevant.
In any case, this all shows my point. Saying “Growth is good” is like saying “Intelligence is good”. Precisely the point of the post. All this is irrelevant if the ecological collapse degrowthers fear is a big enough thing. This would mean something leading to a pretty bad humanity’s state, far worse than stark degrowth. If you want to argue with a degrowther, you have to argue about that, not say growth is good. Same that advocates for AI development have to argue (and mostly don’t do) that developing AI is not dangerous, not saying how wonderful AI could be.
You are Spanish. Spain’s GDP per capita is much lower than that in the USA, yet Spain’s life expectancy is 5 years longer than that of USA’s and Spain outperforms USA in many other social indicators. There’s much more than GDP in prosperity. Past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down *or becomes irrelevant*, at least for many indicators.
Objective measures of subjetive welfare?
The problem with macro GDP skepticism is that it implies micro personal income skepticism, and that is totally implausible (among other consequences of personal income skepticism, imagine how irrelevant becomes unequality for USA where more than 20.000 per capita income is so prevalent).
Those who tell me that more income will not make me happier are telling me that I do not know how to use additional freedom. It is a very marxist position: as (Groucho) Marx said: “Who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?””
Regarding Spain, of course, many British people retire here: you have the Sun, the sunny people, and structural unemployment levels (or the realtive lack of tech and other “high end” jobs) do not affect you.
I don’t find “Spain’s life expectancy is 5 years longer than that of USA’s” to be subjective. Do you?
What about life expectancy by income bucket in the US? How objective is that relation?
It looks that income matters in the US, but then it does not matter across countries…
The US is an extremely diverse society, with extreme outcomes. You have a Bulgaria and a Denmark in each city, we have them in different countries. In fact the positive relation at the micro level between health and income shall be more relevant that aggregate comparisons, that can be extremely affected by ecological fallacies.
Of course, there is a lot causal reversion in the income—welfare relation; both people and countries that are richer are often better in extra economic terms.
But you cannot separate material and non material prosperity. It is the loop of activity and personal virtue what allows people to became affluent, and income gives the resources to have a fulfilling life.
What were the social and moral consequences of stagnating socialism in the USRR? Demoralization and collapse.
Macro growth can be disputed, because is removed from personal experience, but parents always try to put their children in the path of (micro) growth…
Well, this is the whole point. Some ways to organise countries achieve better social outcomes without the need of better GDP. You don’t have Bulgaria and Denmark in each US city in this sense, which is the sense that counts in this conversation.
This is not what degrowthers claim and it is not what I claimed: “*Past a certain point*, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down *or becomes irrelevant*, at least for many indicators.” Logarithmic plots show pretty straight lines. This basically means exactly that past a certain point the relationship becomes irrelevant.
In any case, this all shows my point. Saying “Growth is good” is like saying “Intelligence is good”. Precisely the point of the post. All this is irrelevant if the ecological collapse degrowthers fear is a big enough thing. This would mean something leading to a pretty bad humanity’s state, far worse than stark degrowth. If you want to argue with a degrowther, you have to argue about that, not say growth is good. Same that advocates for AI development have to argue (and mostly don’t do) that developing AI is not dangerous, not saying how wonderful AI could be.