The Measure of Progress – Counting What Really Matters

The author is Professor of Public Policy in the University of Cambridge, and asks why we still use 80-year-old metrics – GDP – to understand today’s economy, with its very different digital framework. At that time, the main constraint was physical rather than natural capital, and the recent relative decline of middle-class living standards has created economic discontent and corresponding political tensions. As she writes, this is a new era, and a new statistical framework will be needed; and the fundamental issue is the definition of value. Many economists have been working on new measures to replace GDP while taking into account well-being, and one of the author’s original contributions is an accounting framework based on time use.

We all have the same budget of 24 hours in the day, all of which has to be used up – it cannot be carried forward. The attention economy – maybe a better term would be the distraction economy – tries to capture our use of time for advertising purposes, and this time is effectively used up as an opportunity cost of other activities foregone (see p. 121). She classifies the use of time either for efficiency and production or well-being in consumption and leisure – what do we do with the time saved? She also refers to a time tax, referring to the annoying phenomenon of getting caught in customer service doom loops, for instance in banking transactions and tedious verification processes. A further irritation is the progressive computerisation of products that are now harder to fix and maintain, requiring increasing levels of technical expertise. A case in point in my own recent experience is our biomass boiler in Scotland, which just ceases to function, showing the fault on a cryptic computer screen – what does this actually mean? In most cases, this entails calling out the expert when 20 years ago the boiler simply had an on-off switch! A great new term for this frustration is ‘enshittification.’

In the final chapter, the author discusses alternative metrics such as the Human Development Index and dashboard models - the question is what to put on the dashboard (see table on p. 246). Cari Harris proposes the hybrid term ‘wellth’ partly as a way of highlighting widespread anxiety and distress. The author returns to her time use accounting framework as arguably the ultimate scarce resource. As economies become increasingly service-oriented, ‘how people choose between ways to spend their time is obviously a key economic decision’ – for instance, the difference between home working and commuting. She also reminds us that ‘economic value added cannot be defined and measured without an underlying conception of value.’ Keynes’ 1930s forecast of a leisure society has been eclipsed by digital developments, so that many of us now feel time-poor. Perhaps it is time for us to take more responsibility for the ways in which we use our time.