*shrugs* We're not gonna reach eye to eye on this one.

we are

Service has value, as does material. Your position does not agree with this.

i never said there was NO value

I said that value didn't have the same WEIGHT as production

services like business 'oil the machinery' of production and trade

but they aren't ESSENTIALS

"i am of the traditional school of thought that only PRODUCTION represents true economic value" If you're walking back this point, very well.

rememeber that any production also implies a degree of creative destruction which has costs of their own

"represents true economic value" key word true

not the same word as 'only'

Also, you indicated they are essential as the shift to tight income is to in house. Nonessential would me the service is discontinued.

i.e. measuring the quantity of production gives you a direct metric of economic performance

but measuring services gives an indirect measure

if i have a nuclear meltdown, all types of new services are required

Erm, that word "true" speaks of singular relevance- all other matters are "false."

but is this a net POSITIVE?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuEv942wOZs

True is another very strong word.

that is a very polar view; again there are different FORMS of value

services are a DIFFERENT form

Phrasing of "true" brings it into a polar view.

these CAN add value but aren't nessecarily showing a postive

GDP is honestly a terrible metric for wellbeing, and I don't care if you include or exclude services from that calculation. Living standards are what really matters, which means looking at the size and quality of homes that people are living in, how easily people can move around and how nice their transportation options are, and how healthy and in shape people are.

you are thinking 2-dimensional which is the typical way of viewing the word 'value'

And the previous explanation was indicative that service provided null value.

Living standards > productivity > GDP

that is the next component i was going to talk about arthur

You could double production, have it all go into hurting people then treating their injuries, and you'd end up with a world that's significantly worse than the one we have now.

another function of 'value' is the difference between the number of currency units and the amount of 'value' stored in each currency unit

the differnce between the value earned and the costs required to earn it is what determines buying power

Still irrelevant.

We should be looking at living standards, and metrics that associate with living standards. Longevity, physical fitness at each age, the quality of housing and how durable those homes are (IE, stick shacks that fall down in 20 years should count less than homes that are built to last for hundreds of years), illness rates, ease of movement, luxury goods and services and how available those are to the masses, etc.

living standard is a completly disconnected concept from any form of economic value

I disagree. If you want everyone to live in a nice, durable house, eat well, be healthy, move around easily, and have access to lots of luxury goods and services, then you need a strong economic foundation to make that happen.

it's a relative and subjective measure which varies from person to person

it isn't uniform

It's easy to be objective about it.

Physical fitness can be done from actual measurement. How long does it take you to run a mile? How far can you run in a minute?

if cost varies from place to place, so does the standard

https://twitter.com/jaxalemany/status/1176883231767060480

run a mile... uphill? down hill? in Denver or Salt Flats?

Hrm, although I do find the metric of GDP pretty damn useless and misleading - living standards (a better word *might* be Quality of Life) is almost impossible to pin down.