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Comment by dmurray | Hacker News Reader

This is usually called the broken window fallacy, from an essay by Bastiat in 1850.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

More specifically, some valuable types of activities are not even measured in GDP - if you build your own table out of roadside scrap, then you might be immensely satisfied by the table, but it will contribute $0 to GDP. If you follow free instructions online (and look various stuff up on Wikipedia), that will again improve your life but not GDP.

I wonder how that kind of reclamation project could be valued in terms of avoidance of waste, avoidance of expenditure of new resources, and the skill development of the person doing the work (in terms of either/both faster pace of the same value created in future reclamations, and/or future marketability of the skills towards a saleable product).

You could start by valuing it at the price someone would pay for it, plus the price the worker would have paid for that many hours of hands-on education.

This isn't totally farfetched: in some countries if you own your house you pay tax on the rent you would have paid to yourself [0]. Taxing someone for feeding or educating himself seems like a small and natural next step.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent

The big thing is childcare from stay at home parents. That counts as 0 GDP, but put them in daycare and give the parent a job that's a net loss financially to the family and GDP has grown considerably.

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