The broken window fallacy is a controversial axiom that implies demand generation isn't a meaningful way to increase GDP (it comes from the camp that believes o

The broken window fallacy is a controversial axiom that implies demand generation isn't a meaningful way to increase GDP (it comes from the camp that believes output capacity is the only true measure of GDP). This concept became particularly controversial during the Cambridge Capital Controversy [0]. If you believe that GDP is an exogenous measure of what society can produce, you run into oddities like global GDP changing trajectory in 2008 [1] (i.e. we never 'caught up' but did the US housing crisis really cause the human race to lose our ability to create more goods and services?). On the other hand, if you believe demand drives GDP, then why don't we just demand ourselves into more wealth? Shouldn't natural constraints like resource scarcity then drive GDP (i.e. the original underpinning of the broken window fallacy)? In either case, the broken window fallacy is far from an agreed-upon axiom. [0]https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/089533003321165010 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/08953300332116501... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD