A wise prime minister looks at the numbers, but not only at the numbers. And of course some of the most valued and important aspects of human development cannot be measured in numbers at all. We can estimate suffering from disease using numbers. We can measure improvements in material living conditions using numbers. But the end goal of economic growth is individual freedom and culture, and these values are difficult to capture with numbers. The idea of measuring human progress in numbers seems completely bizarre to many people. I often agree. The numbers will never tell the full story of what
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