Australia’s GDP figures are meaningless when the boom in datacentres means destroying jobs and the climate | Greg Jericho

GDP merely measures the sum of economic transactions (“activity”) during a period.

It is blind to the distinction between socially beneficial activity (preventing illness, educating children) versus socially harmful activity (selling tobacco, mining cryptocurrency); all of that counts as positive GDP.

It is blind to anything (e.g. doing your own housework, raising your own children, growing your own food, reducing your consumption of stuff generally) which can’t be measured in financial transactions.

GDP is always a useless measure if we’re interested in what’s good for a society.

But it’s pretty good for measuring how wealthy stock market gamblers are feeling. So, for as long as our political leaders represent those interests and not ours, GDP persists.