We produce what we get paid for

At the Naropa Conference on Intentional Economics, as an example, Bernard Lietaer noted that the medical industry provides what it gets paid for: to keep sick people alive. In his book No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative, Edgar Cahn provides more examples. According to current economic theory, "it is growth when we build more prisons and more nursing homes, when we have to clean up toxic waste, and when a couple gets a divorce and has to hire two lawyers." (p. 48) Growth also includes paid child-care, absurd security infrastructure. Money replicates the values that it measures. The dollar does not measure family, community and democracy. Instead, even though the "the non-market economy supplies the fundamental substratum upon which the entire market economy is built" (p. 47), these examples demonstrate that there may be reason for concern when the accepted measure of growth depends on social problems getting worse.