Degrowth Advocates Misunderstand the Business Cycle

By Shiff Gold

The de-growth argument does have a kernel of truth; while it is wrong to completely throw out GDP as a useful measure of economic progress, it is equally wrong to focus on it exclusively. GDP is an imperfect metric. It counts wasteful government social programs, destructive military spending, and spending on natural disaster recovery as contributors to economic growth. It also severely underestimates growth in home production and black or gray markets that evade the calculation of government statisticians.