At its infancy, GDP (Z) was a boon to governments, allowing them to measure the output of labor and track the production, consumption, distribution and exchange of goods and services. It was a standard by which all countries would measure their economic outputs. As GDP grew into adolescence, the way that these outputs were valued began to reflect the strengths of former colonial administrators, while dismissing the natural capital and priorities of former colonies. Lost among the maze of numbers was the fact that the accumulated wealth of the “advanced” economies often involved and included the natural resource wealth and labor of “developing” countries.
In the era of globalization, GDP matured into adulthood, and Z began focusing on new standards for financial investment. Meanwhile, the concept of economic cooperation became a tool for maintaining a type of economic development that provided advantages to the OECD economies at the expense of developing and post-Soviet economies, as well as our global environmental security.
Z is dominated by the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the economic counterpart to NATO.