Unsustainable resource plunder is mis-counted as productive growth instead of a loss to GNP.

Evidence

At the heart of this symbolic nexus was a contest over definitions of growth: each tree planted by the Green Belt Movement stood as a tangible, biological image of steady, sustainable growth, a dramatic counterimage to the ruling elite’s kleptocratic image of “growth,” a euphemism for their high-speed piratical plunder of the nation’s coffers and finite natural resources. Relevant here is William Finnegan’s observation, in a broader international context, that “even economic growth, which is regarded nearly universally as an overall social good, is not necessarily so. There is growth so unequal that it heightens social conflict and increases repression. There is growth so environmentally destructive that it detracts, in sum, from a community’s quality of life.” Certainly, there is something perverse about an economic order in which the unsustainable, ill-managed plunder of resources is calculated as productive growth rather than a loss of GNP. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 376

Categorization

• XREF: The accounting critique pairs with chapter 8’s claim that capitalism abstracts to extract, and sits naturally beside the economics of environmental racism. — connects to: GDP’s status as the success metric distorts national priorities toward unsustainable consumption. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2963; Unlimited economic growth necessarily consumes nonrenewable resources, making sustainable growth an oxymoron; GDP as a metric conceals wealth concentration and environmental destruction — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 93
• SEED: The contest over defining ‘growth’ — tree vs. kleptocratic growth — is a ready essay angle on how terms of economic accounting determine environmental justice.

Broader Connections

• GDP’s status as the success metric distorts national priorities toward unsustainable consumption. #expands (0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2963
• GDP as a metric conceals wealth concentration and environmental destruction #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 93
• Unlimited economic growth necessarily consumes nonrenewable resources, making sustainable growth an oxymoron #qualifies (0.75)