GDP is the wrong measure of a good society

We’re never going to tackle suicide rates under late-stage capitalism, because of what happens when you measure a country purely by its GDP. Under that logic, a person who is out of work doesn’t show up as someone in distress who needs help. They show up as a cost. An “economically inactive” line on a spreadsheet, a drag on the figures, a problem the numbers would rather did not exist. That is the actual, grotesque conclusion of judging a nation by its output alone, and it is exactly why the measure is broken.

This is why we need to start judging success by other measures, such as wellbeing.