February | 2015 | Fighting for Fairness by Remaking the Real Economy

The idea of GDP is simple: the summation of what is produced within the UK avoiding any double counting. It is used to assess how well the economy is doing overall. For the government of the day, growth is good because it suggests we will all be better off. Though GDP is a very imprecise measure, it is one that most people broadly accept.

The economy used to be measured by gross national product (GNP). That measured what UK-owned assets produced, irrespective of where they were in the world. But GNP fell out of favour as UK owned assets were sold to foreign investors with the result that the economy, by that measure, appeared to be in decline. Successive Chancellors tried to make out the sale of UK owned assets was good, because it showed UK was ‘open for business’. But it didn’t really wash. So, since the 1980s, GDP has been the standard measure.

GDP is calculated by simply adding the product of various sectors together as if they were all of equal worth. But in truth some sectors benefit the common good and others are predatory on the common good. But if GDP is growing the government of the day takes credit for successful economic management, irrespective of the fact that it is the predatory components that have grown at the expense of the good sectors.
Continue reading The Great GDP Deception →

The Corporate Reform Collective are launching their Manifesto for the incoming government at Westminster on Monday 2nd March at 6.30 p.m.

To support this initiative and join the debate at this People’s Parliament session contact:
http://thepeoplesparliament.me.uk/themes/fighting-corporate-abuse-beyond-predatory-capitalism
The Corporate Reform Manifesto is available at https://gordonpearson.co.uk/corporate-reform-manifesto

This is backed up in greater detail with explanations and illustrations of how the abuses are carried out through complex corporate structures and how they can be controlled in their newly published book Fighting Corporate Abuse – Beyond Predatory Capitalism

PB 9780745335162 £17.99 | $31 216pp
by the Corporate Reform Collective
PlutoPress http://www.plutobooks.com
Buy the book today for £16 http://bit.ly/CorporateReform

The members of the Corporate Reform Collective are: Tom Hadden (Emeritus Professor, Queen’s University Belfast), Paddy Ireland (Professor of Law at the University of Bristol Law School), Glenn Morgan (Professor of International Management at Cardiff Business School), Martin Parker (Professor of Organisation and Culture at the School of Management, University of Leicester), Gordon Pearson (author of Strategic Thinking, Integrity in Organizations, The Rise and Fall of Management and The Road to Co-operation), Sol Picciotto (Senior Adviser to the Tax Justice Network), Prem Sikka (Professor of Accounting at the Essex Business School) and Hugh Willmott (Research Professor in Organisational Studies at Cardiff University).

Fighting for Fairness by Remaking the Real Economy

Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Great GDP Deception

Corporate Reform Manifesto to be launched at Westminster

Remaking the Real Economy