What Counts – Why Growth Economics is Failing Us

This essay argues that the dominant growth-economics paradigm—anchored in increasing consumption, output and the metric of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—is failing to deliver what matters for both human flourishing and ecological survival. The article further contends that growth measured merely by output masks social and environmental costs: rising inequality, loneliness, resource depletion and ecosystem breakdown receive little attention when greater GDP is taken as progress. Moreover, the author urges that economic logic must be re-embedded within biophysical and social boundaries rather than treated as a self‐contained system of market exchanges. Ultimately, Philipsen issues a provocation: economists and consumer-culture scholars should shift their research agenda toward what really counts—quality of life, purpose, and equitable provisioning—rather than indefinite expansion of output.

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