For the country as a whole, of course, the stock of wealth ultimately determines the flow of consumption that could be derived. However, there are so many uncertainties regarding it (if we believe predictions of a decade left until the climate tipping point, for example, what's the value of wealth accumulated in coal generation? what's housing stock of a country worth? what are the political constraints inherent in a particular wealth distribution?) and the way it could be translated into the current consumption (a "derivative"), that I'd rather look at medium-size rolling window moving average of HDI with GNI replacing GDP to get some idea of underlying trends.
hmmm.
my government does not provide security, I buy guns and burglar alarms and bars for my windows. more consumption. good!
my government does nothing to regulate the release of toxins into my food, water, and air. despite buying my own water filter system (more consumption: good!) to protect my family from contaminated water, I am diagnosed with cancer or emphysema or a neurological disorder and have to buy expensive treatments and pharmaceuticals to stay alive. more consumption. good!
my house is broken into and my TV and stereo and computer are stolen so I have to buy new ones. more consumption. good!
my public school system is falling into bankruptcy and disrepair so I enroll my child in an expensive private school. more consumption. good!
my point is obvious: simple measures of "consumption" are simply insane, even in the absence of true energy and environmental costs. not all consumption is the same.
some consumption increases my quality of life in some immediate way, even if shallow or temporary: I buy a rack of [pastured organic!] lamb and make a really memorable dinner for friends and family; I have the local shop tune up my bicycle for a much more pleasant and fun ride; I buy a book that keeps me fascinated for hours; I buy a nice comfortable chair to read in. other consumption is done merely to maintain an accustomed level of convenience: my hard drive dies so I replace it, my cell phone dies so I replace it. and yet other consumption is done to recover from or try to fend off disaster or misfortune: I have to get my bike mended because some jerk in an SUV sideswiped me; I have to buy medications and treatments for injury or illness; I have to replace stolen stuff; I have to spend money on defences or armaments against predation.
if categories B and C here far outweigh category A, then rising levels of consumption are bad news. they mean that products are shoddy and misfortune is commonplace. which is... actually... kinda where a lot of the industrial workforce is wrt expenditures at present. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Second, if the public school system is falling into disrepair, it probably means not enough money is collected to run it. And some of that money goes into the private school system instead. What's the basic difference - unless you are willing to argue that the public schools are inherently more efficient, and this reallocation is a net loss to the society. The difference is at most of second order even in this case.
There are many other examples of things that according to some value judgement are pure waste - watching Hollywood movies, eating fast food, donating your time or money to charity, or driving a sports car are examples for people I know. Still, other people do value them. Some people buy guns for pure fun and because gun possession satisfies them - probably, in a way you or I would enjoy a good book or a nice picture on the wall.
if categories B and C here far outweigh category A, then rising levels of consumption are bad news. they mean that products are shoddy and misfortune is commonplace. which is... actually... kinda where a lot of the industrial workforce is wrt expenditures at present.
Actually, consumption could be a better measure than GNI, because inequality in consumptions tends to be significantly less than in income, thus aggregation is less of an issue.
May indeed be horror -- to the child... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
actually my point was not (for once) about making moral assessments of the ways people spend money, just drawing an (imho essential and overlooked) distinction between spending money in a discretionary way, for pleasure or benefit, and "having to" spend money to compensate for injuries, misfortunes, crimes, degradation of the quality of life, etc. all yr examples above fall into Cat A for the purposes of my argument here; though we could wrangle about their true-cost to the society at large and hence their desirability as consumption behaviours, they are gratifying to the individual making the expenditure, and hence not Cat B or Cat C (red-queen expenses and damage-control expenses).
the sports car is a Cat A expenditure -- fun, pleasing, gratifying; the hospital bill after the car crash is a Cat C. in many cases (certainly seems to generalise to society as a whole), an excess of Cat A leads to a rising tide of Cat B and Cat C. actually this seems axiomatic if we're on a finite planet, which we are. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I love your examples. On the supply side:
Low pay, less leisure, more production. Good!
We must not count comfortable leisure time as a valued product -- it would make growth worshipers' heads explode. Messy. (But on second thought: ....more cleanup work. Good!...) Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
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... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
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
