Nobel Laureate economist Angus Deaton has delivered a ferocious rebuke to his own profession, saying economists have failed to understand that capitalism is about power.
GDP made a lot more sense to me after I finished vol. 2 of Capital. In a very loose and non-literal sense, I think GDP reflects the amount of surplus value floating around in an economy. The US has a high GDP but when you consider that production is the only source of value (that’s part of where vol 2 comes in) how does that make sense? It’s because the US “steals” surplus value from the global south. The US economy (the non-financial part of it, at least) is a merchant capitalist economy. The US doesn’t make anything - Nike, Apple, Gap, Walmart, etc… none of them make hardly anything in-house much less in the US. Contractors in the global south are where most of the production happens and thus that’s where the value is created, but the hegemonic position of the US as sort the the ultimate merchant capitalist with nuclear weapons , means the production side gets squeezed out of their surplus value and it’s moved to the US with the product. And GDP largely aligns with these flows of value, products, and money.
GDP made a lot more sense to me after I finished vol. 2 of Capital. In a very loose and non-literal sense, I think GDP reflects the amount of surplus value floating around in an economy. The US has a high GDP but when you consider that production is the only source of value (that’s part of where vol 2 comes in) how does that make sense? It’s because the US “steals” surplus value from the global south. The US economy (the non-financial part of it, at least) is a merchant capitalist economy. The US doesn’t make anything - Nike, Apple, Gap, Walmart, etc… none of them make hardly anything in-house much less in the US. Contractors in the global south are where most of the production happens and thus that’s where the value is created, but the hegemonic position of the US as sort the the ultimate merchant capitalist with nuclear weapons , means the production side gets squeezed out of their surplus value and it’s moved to the US with the product. And GDP largely aligns with these flows of value, products, and money.