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Zack Polanski wants to use wellbeing targets instead of GDP to measure growth. Is he right?
(www.bigissue.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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When you measure something and set it as the goal, what was a good indicator becomes divorced from what you care about.
Measuring GDP makes GDP the goal, not general wellbeing. So if you care about wellbeing, measure it and use that as your driving metric.
The first sentence here is in opposition to the final sentence. If you want to measure 'general wellbeing', you will have to define some specific metrics. These will then - according to your own argument - become the goal and you will again be in the position of missing the thing you 'actually' care about.
Alternatively - you could pick a good general measure (like GDP) and also measure other things alongside that to get a good holistic picture. Which is what we already do.