It’s an odd quirk of history that, on the first day of his ill-fated presidential campaign in March 1968, Robert F Kennedy chose to talk to his audience about the limitations of gross domestic product* (GDP) – the world’s headline indicator of economic progress.
It seems stranger still that, despite the power of that iconic speech, growth in GDP remains to this day the predominant measure of progress across the world. Economic success is measured by it. Government policy is assessed by it. Political survival hangs on it.
