There are two ways to make money: you can trade people with money something that they prefer to money, or you can help people with money make more money, in exchange for a share of it.
The value of "output", whatever it is, is dependent on who currently has money. A vaccine for malaria has no value if no one who has money prefers it to money. A machine that can get you to Mars has no value, unless people with money want to go to Mars.
I say people with money, but it really people times money. And a few people have almost all of it.
So when we talk about output, GDP, whatever, as long as it's measured in money remember that it's mostly rich people's preferences we're talking about.
Yes, but it's often implied to be. If you want it to be comparable it usually defaults to be, we have few other agreed on ways to weigh one output of value against another. If someone says "we can't afford that" it's monetary value and thus mostly rich people's preferences they're actually talking about, but it's not as if it's easy to ignore either.
There are two ways to make money: you can trade people with money something that they prefer to money, or you can help people with money make more money, in exchange for a share of it.
The value of "output", whatever it is, is dependent on who currently has money. A vaccine for malaria has no value if no one who has money prefers it to money. A machine that can get you to Mars has no value, unless people with money want to go to Mars.
I say people with money, but it really people times money. And a few people have almost all of it.
So when we talk about output, GDP, whatever, as long as it's measured in money remember that it's mostly rich people's preferences we're talking about.