GDP is very much flawed in the sense of &quot;how much humanity has achieved&quot;. You need some kind of moral framework for that. And I really don&#x27;t think you can go with money = good. And you might also need some kind of better measure for achievement as separate from ethics.<p>But it&#x27;s answering a completely different question. It&#x27;s trying to answer the question &quot;has the system we call economy optimized itself during the time span we are looking&quot;. The &quot;optimized&quot; here is referring to Pareto efficiency more than anything else. But GDP is not <i>that</i> good tool even for this. I chose it to have something definite to discuss.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Pareto_efficiency" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Pareto_efficiency</a><p>Personally I see capitalism as quite shitty tool for distributing and managing resources. But in globalized and interconnected world we have to operate in low trust environment. With such mutual lack of trust, capitalism is suddenly the best possible system for doing stuff.<p>EDIT: Theoretically perceived value can be added to system with constant amount of resources. You would probably gladly pay 10$ for very fine stamped shovel that light weight. If there is 15$ crude, rusty, heavy welded shovel right next to it, it doesn&#x27;t look all that appealing. You normally don&#x27;t perceive situations like this because the system is working so well. Any product out there could be optimized for slightly less material usage while not making it worse in any way, that would directly increase the profit margin. That would show in GDP.<p>Currently we don&#x27;t do that, because engineers are busy doing other stuff. But if there would be price increase in materials, the picture changes automatically.