Ebook: Gross domestic problem: the politics behind the world's most powerful number

About the series; About the author; Title page; Copyright; Table of contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction The world's most powerful number; What is GDP?; The politics of GDP; GDP and its critics; Chapter 1 The history of GDP: from crisis to crisis; Numbers and politics: the pre-history of GDP; GDP as a 'war machine'; Manipulation and the 'stats war'; Globalization of national income and the global economic crisis; The greatest invention of the twentieth century?; Chapter 2 The Frankenstein syndrome; Taming the monster; Figure 2.1 GDP growth in the USA.;The world's most powerful number -- The history of GDP: from crisis to crisis -- The Frankenstein syndrome -- The global quest to dethrone GDP -- Change from below -- Supremacy and resistance.;"Gross domestic product is one of the best-known and most powerful statistics in the contemporary world. It drives government policy on a variety of vital areas, from health to education. Yet perhaps for the first time since its invention in the 1930s, a wide range of people regard this icon of economic growth as a problem. Gross Domestic Problem unpacks GDP -- what it measures, what it doesn't, and why -- and reveals the powerful politics that have allowed it to dominate today's economies. Lorenzo Fioramonti demonstrates just how little GDP has to do with equity and social and environmental justice, and shows that an alternative is possible."--Provided by publisher.