Warum das BIP doch (fast) alles ist

Immer wieder wird betont, dass das Bruttoinlandsprodukt (BIP) nicht als Wohlstandsindikator dient. In Deutschland schafft die Bundesregierung es offiziell als Ziel ab:

→ Robert Habecks neue Wohlstands­mes­sung ver­schlei­ert Zielkonflikte

Die FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) erkennt hingegen die Bedeutung des BIP: „Yes, GDP is (almost) everything“.

• „Robert Kennedy was at least eloquent in his sanctimony. ‘Gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising’, he said in 1968, but not the ‘beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages’. Napalm, prisons, tree-felling, violent television and guns, one of which would serve as the instrument of his murder three months later: these made their way into the growth data. ‘That which makes life worthwhile‘ didn’t.“ – bto: Da kann man ihm auch nicht widersprechen. Und wie gesagt, nimmt es die Bundesregierung zum Anlass, das Ziel gleich ganz abzuschaffen.
• „The looming recession will be painful. But it will also drive a certain kind of post-materialist humbug from polite discourse. Growth will be harder to dismiss as a bean counter’s tawdry obsession when there is so little of the stuff to go round.” – bto: Es wird spannend zu sehen, wie gut die Grünen die Erfüllung ihrer No-Growth-Wünsche verkraften.
• „There are two problems with the line that GDP isn’t everything. One is that no sentient being has ever claimed that it is. The other is that GDP is very nearly everything. Immigrants versus nativists, cities versus provinces: the cultural fault lines that marble the body politic of the western world were there before the crash of 2008. The difference was that governments could veil them with cash. (…) As the nation outside London presses ahead with its bid for middle-income status, that civic peace will be harder to buy. A slowing China might discover the same. Proverbs 10:12 should have said that growth, not love, covers a multitude of sins.” – bto: So ist es. Eine wachsende Wirtschaft hat auch unsere Politiker davor geschützt, die Rechnung für die Masse an Fehlentscheidungen zu bekommen.
• „In the economic history course he teaches at LSE (…) Dr Tim Leunig, shows that rich nations are better at almost all the things we care about than poor ones. This includes things as costless as female suffrage and not committing homicide. (…) The upkeep of national monuments costs money. The writing of poetry depends on leisure, which costs money.” – bto: Auch die schönen, nicht im BIP abgebildeten Dinge, müssen bezahlt werden.
• „To predict the decline of massed, fast-moving humanity is merely pessimistic. To actively will it is getting on to be romantic and even reactionary.” – bto: Und das dominiert die Diskussion in Deutschland.
• „No doubt, a recession will concentrate minds. As public spaces fray, and relationships come under strain, and leisure becomes less affordable, people will rediscover the foundational role of growth to almost everything they cherish. The question is whether the hard-won lesson will survive the next complacent boom, the next oration against growth…” – bto: Bei uns stellt sich eher die Frage, ob wir dahin zurückfinden, bevor es zu spät ist.

→ ft.com (Anmeldung erforderlich): „Yes, GDP is (almost) everything“, 17. Juni 2022