You're not wrong but GDP (just like other metrics) are liable to being gamed and over optimized. I am sure plenty of people across America and western Europe w

You're not wrong but GDP (just like other metrics) are liable to being gamed and over optimized. I am sure plenty of people across America and western Europe would tell you their quality of life has gone down in the last 30-40 years (as wages have stagnated) and national inequality has increased in these countries. I personally believe immigration and globalisation more widely are contributing factors to a wealth redistribution of the middle and working classes of wealthy countries to developing ones. It's perfectly possible for global inequality to come down while globally local inequality increases. That would be a perfect example of Simpsons paradox - if wealth stratifies in every country you might see this. That we can't have a nuanced discussion about that without it being shamed as nationalism or racism is dangerous. After all, governments are democratically elected to serve their own people. If they aren't looking after their own citizen's interests are they doing their job? More cynically if you structurally ignore the "proles" then you leave yourself exposed to populism rearing its head. I don't really have any answers, nor much expertise on these matters but I notice a resoluteness on topics such as GDP which resembles faith more than reason.