Club Lunch- The Growth Delusion: How the World is Wrongly Obsessed by GDP

The world is obsessed by growth, by GDP and by the state of “the economy”. But few stop much to think precisely what these terms mean. In Brexit Britain and Trump’s America there is deep scepticism about the picture of our economies as presented by experts. That is not surprising. The way we measure our economies is deeply flawed. GDP tells us nothing about distribution, about sustainability or about the nature of production. Mainstream economics treats nature as a free resource that should be exploited as ruthlessly as possible. David Pilling discussed these issues and his new book The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations. The talk examined the flaws of our economic measurements – and by extension our economic thinking – and propose how we might imagine our economies differently in order to maximise what actually matters: our welfare.

David Pilling is an associate editor and former Asia editor of the Financial Times. He has worked for the paper for more than 20 years in a variety of writing and editing roles, covering politics, business and economics. He has been posted to Santiago, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Hong Kong and has reported from more than 50 countries. His previous book was Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival. He is currently the Africa editor based in London.