Me and GDP

Why isn’t the global economy growing any faster?

Anywhere you look, there are lots of people brainstorming different ways to fix this problem. In early November, leaders from the world’s largest 20 nations gathered in Cannes to draft a two-page “plan of action” for the global economy. Two weeks earlier, European leaders held a summit in Brussels to address the continent’s debt crisis.  Before that, the U.S. Congress convened in Washington to debate how to invigorate a sluggish economy.

In each of these cases, notice that the focus is always on a system—the economy, the euro zone, the government—and not the people who make it up.

It prompts a question:  Why haven’t we heard about any plan of action for individual people to fix the economy?  We know what “the economy” must do—but what about me? For some reason, economic troubles are always considered external.  Businesses, people say, would thrive if only taxes were lower here or if only governments could levy higher taxes there.  This isn’t to say that debating policy isn’t important.  It certainly is.  But why doesn’t anyone ever say, businesses would thrive if only I—me, personally, myself—found a way to do my job better?  Why don’t we ever look in the mirror? 

There are two ways to think about economic growth.  One way is to say that the global economy produced 3% more goods and services this year than last.  The other way is to say that, theoretically, each worker on earth found a way to make and sell 3% more widgets than he or she did the year before.  Sure, there are other ways of getting growth; you could have more workers, for instance, or charge 3% more for the same paper clips you sold last year.  But the larger point remains: GDP improves when people challenge themselves to improve every day.

People can get better at almost anything.  A person can recover from back surgery, learn how to read faster, shave six seconds off her mile time, shuffle a deck of cards two-tenths of a second faster than the day before, add new words to his vocabulary, or figure out a faster route to the drugstore.  This is where the encouraging stories about economies come from: Someone learns than she can carry her luggage much faster if she puts wheels on it.  A baker learns that he can make his cinnamon bread more delicious by adding a pinch more of baking soda.  A hotel concierge learns that he can get his customers to smile more often if he addresses them by their first names.  As a result, people are willing to pay more for a suitcase, a loaf of bread, or a hotel room, because these things have become more valuable.  In each of these cases, it wasn’t “the economy” growing.  It was individual people learning how to do something better.  It’s only after adding up all of these individual stories that we get the big GDP number.  

We don’t often make the connection, but we should.  Let’s say I want to buy a car, so I go to the local car dealer.  If, when I do, the salesman waits five minutes to acknowledge I’m there, makes me feel like I’m stupid when I try to understand the lease terms, and keeps asking me how I’d like to pay for it before I’ve even committed—then I’ll probably walk away.  Who wants to pay tens of thousands of dollars for higher blood pressure?

But let’s say I go into the same dealership and the salesman greets me with a smile, offers me a steaming cup of coffee, explains patiently what all the lease terms mean, and doesn’t rush me.  I’m more likely to buy the car.  I like being treated like a real person, I like hospitality, I like knowing what I’m buying, and so I’m willing to pay for it.

That’s all GDP growth really is at its core.  If a dealership moves from the former example to the latter, it increases GDP.  And it all happens because a single salesman decides that he wants to give someone the type of service that’s worth paying for. 

If we want the U.S. economy to grow, maybe we should stop worrying about how to boost the industrial sector or regulatory environment or investing landscape—and instead ask how we can improve ourselves.  How are we growing as workers?  What are we doing to get better at what we do?  Do we zone out at work?  Do we ask for more time than we need to finish projects? Do we listen as attentively as we could?

The Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft once described a Buddhist Zen poet who wrote, “Drinking a cup of green tea, I stopped the war.”  The point, Kreeft says, is something central not just to Zen philosophy but to the Catholic faith: That the only way to stop a war is “by changing souls, which are the sources of war; by touching the root, not the branches.” Or, as the Catechism says, “Jesus’ call to conversion and penance…does not aim first at outward works, sackcloth and ashes, fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion”(1430).

In other words, if we want something to change, we need to begin by first changing our own hearts, our minds, ourselves. Want to win the Super Bowl? Block the linebacker you’re supposed to.  Want greater civility in national politics?  Don’t call your co-worker a jackass behind his back.  Want lower carbon emissions?  Take a cold shower.  Want an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?  Forgive your spouse.  Want greater opportunities and dignity for young girls in Sudan?  Stop looking at pornography.  Want a society with stronger families?  Pray with your own.  Want an end to hunger?  Fast two days a week.  Want the global economy to recover and grow?  Find out how to do your job better. 

The sooner we can see that all true, good change has to originate within our own hearts, the sooner we stop looking to “policymakers” or “experts” for the answer.  Only then will we realize the answer to this question. Why isn’t the global economy growing any faster?  Because of me.