Can’t eat money image via stephenmelkisethian/flickr. Creative Commons 2.0 license.
A battle is brewing on the outskirts of the general public. A rising tide of quixotic activists is trying to overthrow a time-tested American institution. Like the Battle in Seattle, where the IMF was put on public trial, this new struggle will get a lot of attention, but the institution will remain.
The “institution” in this case is a metric: GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. But GDP isn’t any old metric, like widgets assembled or the price of potatoes. GDP is thoroughly institutionalized at the center of our domestic policy arena. When fiscal and monetary policies are crafted, each is judged according to the likely effects on GDP. If something will increase GDP, it must be good and will likely be adopted. GDP growth is the king of policy goals.