Abstract

Abyss of Progress

In a previous article, the author elaborated on the simple proposition that an index which evaluated the annual growth of man-made goods while assiduously ignoring the annual growth of man-made "bads," the noxious spillover from modern industry and its products, could not be relied upon to plot the course of real income over time. Moreover, if the condition of society is such that the annual increment of goods adds a measure of choice that is marginal to people's contentment, while the annual increment of "bads" deprives them of environmental choices that are vital to their sense of well being, a decline in social welfare may accompany the observed growth of gross national product. In principle, at least, many of these vexatious spillover effects can be measured, though in practice they are only beginning to enter into the cost-benefit studies of a number of public investment projects.