In the late 1970s I wrote a book called Transaction Based Economics. The basic model was good, I argued that the fundamental unit of commerce is not an exchange but is a transaction. An exchange is simple and clear but in the real world we have transactions that have many attendant features such as service, warrantees and recourse.
I ended the book with a model of the GNP proposed by Hazel Henderson and others that weighted the GNP by attaching measurements of environmental goodness and an array of social equity standards.
I was ideological and stupid. I apologize for my wrong position, my pathetically incompetent thinking about integrating social weights and economics. Any harm done by my juvenile advocacy of narrow morality is deeply regretted by me.
The GNP is a brilliant invention, it is double entry bookkeeping, surprisingly reliable and resilient and it is not part of a moral system.
To weight this great invention down with morality would make it useless.
Think for one moment about a Congress somewhere sometime subtracting from the GNP for every abortion, every child that announces his or her homosexuality and for every drunk who ends up in the drunk tank. There will be a Congress somewhere else that subtracts from their GNP for every child born without two parents, they will subtract for every carton of cigarettes sold, for every species lost, for every addition to suburban sprawl and for every drug dealer sent to prison.
Don't those two hypothetical scenarios tell you why the GNP (or the GDP) should exist without moral constraints?