This excerpt from a JFK speech[1] is rather relevant:
> But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
Another by Shaw, one might say in the startup spirit:
"“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
> Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.
The thing is though, that GDP is correlated with all those good things he mentions. It is wealthy countries with high GDP that have higher quality education, time and interest for poetry, less corruption, improved child mortality, improved air quality, and more equal, stable marriages, than countries with low GDP. Countries with high GDP are also the ones that care about the environment. Getting from low GDP to high GDP can be messy, but once a country has high GDP, it starts caring more about the environment. A good example of this is China, who is much more concerned now about air quality and pollution, than it was a decade ago.
I agree with your overall point, but it is a mistake to see poetry as a product of development. The Persian-speaking region is among the most poetry-mad of all peoples on earth, but rarely have they been wealthy. And the Manas, the epic-poetry tradition of Kyrgyzstan that has persisted for centuries, is losing ground among younger generations precisely because of access to modern luxuries like television and the internet. Moreover, when Milman Parry and Albert Lord wanted to study firsthand the kind of techniques that gave rise to Homer’s poetry, they headed for what was then among the poorest parts of Europe. The list could do on and on.
The real worthwile goal is having a high GDP /per capita/. If you take the top countries by GDP alone, you have China, India, Brazil, US. None of them are at the top in quality of life measurements.
> But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
[1] https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-famil...