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4 changes: 3 additions & 1 deletion src/content/the-last-economy/chapter-3.mdx
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Expand Up @@ -68,7 +68,9 @@ _What does equilibrium mean in a market designed for exponential acceleration?_

**The Reality Check:** Wikipedia provides twenty billion pages of free knowledge monthly. Its contribution to human flourishing is incalculable. Its contribution to GDP, however, is negative because it destroyed the encyclopedia industry, a market where a single set of Britannica encyclopedias once cost consumers $1,400.

This reveals the central perversity of our economic dashboard: it registers the creation of immense public value as a loss, while consistently counting the human tragedies and social costs detailed in the preceding exhibits as positive growth. We measure destruction as production and wonder why society feels like it is falling apart while the numbers go up.
Meanwhile, GDP celebrates actual human tragedies as economic growth. A divorce boosts GDP through lawyer fees, court costs, and duplicate housing. A hurricane is an economic bonanza: insurance payouts, reconstruction spending, and replacement purchases all count as positive growth. A mass shooting triggers a surge in security spending, therapy sessions, and funeral services that our economic dashboard registers as prosperity. The opioid crisis has been a GDP goldmine: pharmaceutical sales, addiction treatment centers, and rehabilitation facilities all contribute to the "growing economy."

This reveals the central perversity of our economic dashboard: it registers the creation of immense public value as a loss, while consistently counting human tragedies and social costs as positive growth. We measure destruction as production and wonder why society feels like it is falling apart while the numbers go up.

_If the best things in life are free, why is our economy designed to measure only the things that cost money?_

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