If past trends continue, the world’s gross domestic product will be about twice as big by 2040 as it is today. That’s the sort of growth rate that translates to 30-fold growth over a century, or by a factor of a thousand over two centuries.
Is that miraculous, or apocalyptic? In itself, neither. GDP is a synthetic statistic, invented to help us put a measuring rod up against the ordinary business of life. It measures neither the energy and resource consumption that might worry us, nor the things that really lead to human flourishing.
That disconnection from what matters might be a problem if politicians strove to maximise GDP, but they don’t — otherwise they would have hesitated before imposing austerity in the face of a financial crisis, launching trade wars or getting Brexit done. Economic policymaking has flaws, but an obsession with GDP is not one of them.