In his new book, US Vice President JD Vance launches a broadside against Gross Domestic Product as a measure of national success, drawing on examples from Japan to argue that economic statistics fail to capture true human flourishing. But his critique, while tapping into a genuine debate about the limits of GDP, borrows heavily from European degrowth discourse and risks obscuring the practical value of the metric for countries across the Indo-Pacific.
Vance, who has emerged as a leading voice of the New Right in Washington, writes that a $6 pint of Japanese strawberries is statistically identical to a $6 pint of American strawberries, even if the Japanese fruit is superior in quality. “If everyone in Japan eats better strawberries than everyone in America, the economic indicators have failed to measure something meaningful,” he argues.
This observation is not new. Economists have long acknowledged that GDP comparisons between countries with vastly different lifestyles—such as Japan and the United States—are fraught with difficulty. Adjustments for quality differences, purchasing power parity, and non-market goods are standard tools in the trade. Yet Vance uses this valid point to dismiss the entire field: “Maybe economics is just fake,” he writes, recalling a conversation after a trip to Japan.
From Degrowth to Spiritual Decline
Vance’s deeper argument is that GDP-oriented thinking has displaced moral and spiritual values, particularly Christian ones, in American society. He contends that economists have become “false prophets” who prioritize consumption over community, family, and faith. “We orient people toward a life of consumption,” he writes. “We tell them to find meaning in the home they buy, the money they earn, the prestige of their job.”
This line of reasoning is familiar to observers of European politics. Left-wing parties in France, Germany, and elsewhere have long advocated for degrowth—a deliberate reduction in economic output to address inequality and environmental degradation. They, too, denigrate GDP as a metric of well-being. Vance’s innovation is to repackage these arguments for an American conservative audience, substituting concerns about inequality with appeals to spiritual elevation, community cohesion, and traditional morality.
But the borrowing is transparent. The American right, frustrated by free-trade and immigration policies that boost GDP but challenge cultural identity, has found a convenient intellectual ally in the European left. As Vance puts it, “We pretend there are scientific answers to questions of values.” The implication is clear: if GDP is a flawed measure, then policies that reduce it—such as trade restrictions or immigration curbs—cannot be easily dismissed as economically harmful.
Japan as a Cautionary Tale
Vance’s use of Japan as an example is instructive but incomplete. Japan’s economy has experienced decades of low growth, deflation, and demographic decline, yet its citizens enjoy high life expectancy, low crime, and a rich cultural life. For Vance, this proves that GDP is not everything. But Japanese policymakers themselves have long struggled with the consequences of stagnation: a shrinking workforce, rising public debt, and a sense of national drift. The Japanese government under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pursued “new capitalism” policies aimed at boosting growth while addressing inequality—hardly a rejection of GDP as a target.
Across the Indo-Pacific, countries like India, Vietnam, and Indonesia have used GDP growth as a benchmark for lifting millions out of poverty. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in New Delhi targets 8% annual growth to create jobs for a young population. Vietnam’s Communist Party sets GDP targets as part of its five-year plans. For these nations, GDP is not a fetish but a practical tool for measuring progress. To dismiss it as spiritually empty is to ignore the material realities that still define life for billions.
Vance’s critique also overlooks how GDP data informs critical policy decisions in the region. For example, the India-Vietnam BrahMos deal strengthens deterrence against China, but its economic rationale—boosting defense exports and regional security—relies on GDP-based assessments of national capacity. Similarly, China’s retaliatory sanctions on US defense and rare earth firms are calibrated to inflict maximum economic pain, a calculation that depends on GDP data.
The Limits of the Critique
Vance is right that GDP does not measure everything that matters. It ignores unpaid domestic labor, environmental degradation, and social well-being. But these limitations are well understood by economists, who supplement GDP with indices like the Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator, and the OECD’s Better Life Index. The solution is not to abandon GDP but to use it alongside other metrics.
Moreover, Vance’s alternative—a return to Christian moral language as the basis for economic policy—raises its own problems. In a pluralistic society, whose morality prevails? And in the Indo-Pacific, where religious traditions range from Buddhism and Hinduism to Islam and Shinto, a Christian-centric framework is unlikely to resonate. Japan’s Shinto-influenced ethics of community and harmony, for instance, offer a different path to spiritual fulfillment than Vance’s evangelical vision.
Ultimately, Vance’s crusade against GDP is a distraction from the real challenges facing the United States and its partners in Asia. The region’s economies are grappling with supply chain disruptions, demographic shifts, and the rise of China. These issues require clear-eyed economic analysis, not a wholesale rejection of the tools that have helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. As Europe considers high trade barriers against China’s export machine, it does so with GDP data in hand—not as a fetish, but as a necessary guide.
Vance’s book may appeal to those who feel that material abundance has come at the cost of spiritual emptiness. But for the nations of the Indo-Pacific, the choice is not between GDP and morality. It is between using economic data wisely or discarding it in favor of ideology. The latter is a fool’s errand.
