By Fabien Couderc, translation by Sarah Potter The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress made its report last month. This Commission, conceived by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has the principal aim of “considering the limits of our national accounts (…) and finding the best way to overcome these so that our measurements of economic progress are more comprehensive.” This is an old debate. In Economics, use of GDP as the only indicator for economic progress and well-being has been criticised since the emergence of new themes in the field, such as development (as opposed to growth), followed by sustainable development. Firstly, as the Commission points out, growth of GDP does not necessarily always translate into increased individual or common well-being. An oil slick will inevitably lead to growth, as it requires a massive clean-up effort, but can we honestly claim that it increases well-being as well? There are many more such examples. Secondly, GDP only takes into account economic activity with a monetary value. Yet not every economic product has one. An individual doing housework in their own home would not figure in the national accounts, but a paid cleaning operative would, yet the result is the same. Thirdly, GDP only measures wealth accrued today, without taking into account any future deterioration. Yet you only have to open a newspaper to understand that what we produce today can damage the quality of life for future generations. In response to these criticisms, the Commission has drawn up a set of sensible solutions, the majority of which have been part of economic theory for a long time. The report’s innovation, therefore, is not based around the ‘new’ measurement criteria it employs to measure economic and social progress better. In my mind, its success is more reliant on two fundamental points: firstly, the Commission concludes that there is no existing composite indicator that can measure both economic and social progress, but there are several types of index that take into account one aspect or another, and can necessarily only provide an imperfect representation; secondly, the report has brought to the pubic stage a debate that, until now, has been held almost exclusively between experts. Why is this matter so important? Because these indicators claim to measure individual and collective ‘well-being’. The choice of one indicator or another is therefore anything but academic. In the end, we are not asking “How can we measure economic and social progress in the most comprehensive way possible?”, but rather “What do we want to measure?”. Behind such a choice as this are, first and foremost, political and social considerations - we must collectively decide what kind of a world we want to live in and which concerns we want to prioritise. As with every political choice, this decision must not remain in the hands of a small group of the enlightened elite or policymakers; it should be a matter for the laypeople to decide. The selection of these indicators should be at the heart of democratic debates. And yet, concerns about well-being are not limited to a single section of society, still less to a single nation, especially in a world as interdependent as ours, where the deeds of one country have direct consequences for the quality of life in others. Therefore, it is untenable that such a debate be limited to a national sphere.