Something something when a metric becomes a target something something it ceases to be a useful metric. Only in this case the metric is fungible and can be traded for almost anything else in the world. No wonder it became the target.

The older I get, the more I think Tolkien and Herbert had it right (despite disagreeing with much of their politics); gift economies, subsistence farming, and self-reliance are the way to go to prevent us from destroying ourselves.