GDP and the Mayor: None So Blind
May 26, 2019
By NZB3
There are none so blind as those who will not see. While discussing Doughnut Economics with Neil Holdom (New Plymouth District Mayor) earlier this became very clear. Neil recognises that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a poor measure of economic prosperity. He welcomed Kate Raworth’s ‘Doughnut’ criticisms earlier this month as a step in the right direction. Mind you, he had to say something nice because New Plymouth is hosting the ‘Just Transition‘ of their energy revenue from National 5.0 to Labour 6.0 currently. Holdom is looking for something even better but when I offered it to him he shrank away.
Lifting the Quality of Debate in NZ
His Worship, Mayor Holdom, opened up a Facebook post by saying he wanted to lift the quality of debate in New Zealand. “I’m all for intelligent debate,” he says, so let’s propose a better measurement system than GDP. Knowing of my interest, and libertarianism, he invited me to take an honest shot…
I’m sure you can articulate what you don’t like but can you tell us what you would do, how you would establish a measurement approach, what you would include and why.
Holdom signals reasonableness like this, he even quotes Michelle Obama about the virtue of “going high” when others “go low.” Actually he’s usually the first in line to go low. Just the same, I offered the libertaraian point of view on GDP he requested.
Neil’s first reaction was to threaten to censor my comments into “cyber oblivion” for their lack of “variety” or “moving the conversation forward.” So much for a call for “intelligent debate” when the guy asking for it immediately substitutes taunts about tinfoil hats, chemtrails, defecation, and surveillance state paranoia…all directed at me? What the hell did I say to call down this abusive Mayoral wrath?
“.. we might have to set up a givealittle page to fundraise for a custom tinfoil hat, please advise head measurements and take a photo of the chemtrails above your house and I will have one of my contacts at GCSB deliver it to you, no need to provide an address, we can work it out… I might moderate you into cyber-oblivion.”- Mayor Holdom
All I’d said to call forth such wrath was to agree GDP was a phony baloney measure. But I said Raworth’s Doughnut ideas were like that too and that I was sceptical of Government’s changing the yardsticks and names of their departments except to bamboozle us. To understand why that anti-bureaucracy sentiment gets under the Mayor’s skin and he lashes out check out his fantasy for economic measurement…
I like to build models
Don’t indulge the vanity of thinking there is a Grand Unified Macroeconomic equation. Some Holy Grail mathematical Da Vinci Code that’s going to make all your legislative problems dissolve into a few lines of code in some Marxist Supercomputer? Forget about it. Can New Plymouth succeed as a Communist Command Economy where Mao and Stalin failed because you’ve got more computers and “doughnuts?”
“I like to build models with hard data…What I’d really like to see is a league table that all nations contribute data to that allows comparisons on a like for like basis with increasingly granular data which allows us to identify which economies are the most sustainable, effective and efficient and allow those needing to improve to identify what others are doing well…Our existing approach to economics is far too narrow, ad hoc and unsophisticated..”- Mayor Holdom
Let it go. Forget your Globalist dreams of a “league table that all nations contribute data to” and quantifying human beings as numbers in some Doomsday Book. I am not a number, I am a free man. Don’t. The information you require is not centralised and never could be.
Since Plato or earlier, people with controlling mindsets have tried to squish human beings into boxes, little boxes. When it comes to political expression this comes out in the form of Soviet Communism, The Republic, The Venus Project, Fascism, Skynet, Ultron etc. To rebuke these people in the context of economics or politics will never change their mind. They are ego-identified in the mindset of controlling other people as things rather than ends in in themselves. To challenge this point of view presents them with an existential crisis and they lash out with abuse.
We Anarchists, on the other hand, have a trust mindset. We accept that everyone is on their own path and that in an open society our mutual self interest builds prosperity. There’s no need for micromanagers and beurocrats, league tables and Doomsday Books. When an economy is doing well we don’t thank god and we don’t thank the Minister of Finance either!
The tradition I come from is a long one. We go back to thinkers like Aristotle, Hayek, and Popper. For a longer answer, check out the following video I made about the topic in my ACT days. While you may disagree, don’t be like the New Plymouth District Mayor.
Neil Holdom: “Rick Giles has no idea what to do, only ideas of what not to do. Sigh. Was hoping there was some substance behind the bravado”
This is a legitimate debate to have but he refuses to even recognise an open society. To him we require a Control Economy and it is only a question of calculating and commanding the units of production on a systematic and global scale. I say that’s vanity and self-imposed blindness.
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image ref. Holdom’s selfie with Labour 6.0 commisars; Facebook
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