GDP is the most influential indicator in the world. It is published all over the world and there is a powerful logistical infrastructure (the "GDP multinational") which involves national statistical offices, international institutes, policy researchers, academics, media and society. Yet GDP is not a good measure of sustainability or well-being and this is why hundreds of alternatives have been proposed in the last decades. This "Beyond-GDP cottage industry" is expanding all the time but there is no sign that it is going to threaten the dominance of GDP anytime soon. Replacing GDP by 2030 provides a strategy to overcome this situation by 2030 and Chapter 1 provides an outline of the arguments made in the book.

GDP was not always as successful as it is today. National income accounting has existed for centuries but only started to take off in the 1930s and 1940s in a handful of countries. These new macroeconomic statistics proved to be useful in managing the aftermath of the Great Depression and were invaluable in planning during the Second World War. Building on these successes, the period after the war proved to be the "Golden Age" for macroeconomics and its key indicator GDP. Growth targets were set by many governments and economists became the most influential policy advisors. A powerful institutionalised community emerged that is based on a coherent policy science (macroeconomics), accounting framework (the System of National Accounts, SNA) and a key indicator (GDP). The most important feature of any community is a common language, and the SNA serves as the dictionary and grammar book for macroeconomics. Whether you are a macroeconomist in Sri Lanka, Senegal or Slovenia, all use this common language. Macroeconomic thinking was in turmoil in the 1970s and after the 2008 financial crisis, but the underlying language has endured.