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Ultimately, it's the broadly defined consumption over the life span of all currently living inhabitants of the country
Created by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Human Development Index is a summary composite index that measures a country's average achievements in three basic aspects of human development: longevity, knowledge, and a decent standard of living."
I used "ethical grounds" because most of the counter-arguments against using consumption seem to be grounded in ethics.
And I was talking about a medium-run average of consumption, not instantaneous one. It's possible to maintain high consumption standards for some time by recklessly letting your capital stock (wealth) depreciate, or by exploiting natural resources. That's why a longer view is needed.
b) as ultimately material well-being is related to consumption, this is the measure that should be used - the integral of it over time, anyway.
c) it's very easy to damn GDP but hard to come up with viable alternatives that could be used in all countries, that's why it's used despite the shortcomings. Just like the democracy, you see.
b. I could go for the integral of GNI as telling us something more useful.
c. I'm not convinced that hiding the subtleties of reality behind a single index is going to tell us a damn thing. To that extent, HDI is just as intrinsically flawed as GDP - neither mean anything much out of context.
... and ownership of all that real estate would pass into the hands of industrial-northern financiers. Just coincidentally, of course. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
If people didn't have mortgages and rents to pay, they'd be much less willing to stay in the rat race... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
IANAE, and all that. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
So, yes, I understand your argument about infrastructure. But take the UK, where the infrastructure hasn't been kept up to the point where, even if it's still a "wealthier" country than Ireland, it costs a lot of money just to move around and this is reflected in the GDP (PPP) albeit in a different way from how lack of infrastructure affects Ireland. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
