The confusion around the word "value" here is unfortunate but hilarious. Marx distinguished between "use value" (the value you get from using the razor) and "e

The confusion around the word "value" here is unfortunate but hilarious. Marx distinguished between "use value" (the value you get from using the razor) and "exchange value" (the money you are willing to pay for the razor). Those terms would help a lot to put this discussion on a coherent footing. Economists have tended to shy away from trying to measure use value. However they are forced by actual events to talk about increases in "consumer surplus" which is effectively defined by the increase in use value per dollar, or alternative decline in dollars per unit of use value. More generally the problem isn't just that "we have become used to measuring the economy by stock prices." The problem is that we've only ever agreed on ways to measure the economy that depend on money. However money as a measure of the economy becomes less and less useful. Productivity increases are measured in % per year -- which implies productivity is on an exponential curve. And as productivity tends toward infinity, exchange value and profit tend toward zero. We'd better get a handle on use value, otherwise we won't be able to measure much at all.