I believe the article is full of astute thinking. > First, the author made a huge mistake when talking about GDP. A common theme of the article is measurement

I believe the article is full of astute thinking. > First, the author made a huge mistake when talking about GDP. A common theme of the article is measurement, value, and the measurement of value. Does Canada create the same 'value' as India? The notion seems preposterous, as how can a country 1/35th the size of another produce the same value - the author directly questions what 'value' is, as a measurement of something called 'productivity'. The entire article is a critique of what productivity is. > The nation with the longest life expectancy is the workaholic Japanese culture so disparaged by the author! It is not disparaged, quite the opposite. The author highlights that Japan measures (again, a theme of measurement) the number of deaths by overwork, and pretty explicitly and bluntly states that some other countries do not (and sarcastically concludes it must therefore not exist in those countries). > Measuring and quantifying something is a prerequisite to optimizing it. Maybe a lot of people are measuring the wrong things. I agree. I believe the author is questioning what needs to be optimised and what is optimal. Before that, measurement has no scope, and what is currently optimised for 'productivity' may not be productive (excuse my pun).