I was reading the article and I saw that someone commented saying some pretty uneducated stuff, I wanted to reply bet the comment is 7 months old and I doubt anyone would read it, so I will reply to it here, in the case that someone saw it and did not know how to respond to his argument: here's the comment:

What is the point of this article? Replace GDP with what? And people do not all sit in traffic--kind of a dim >and not very accurate portrait of the US(its a big country with lots and lots of available land) The average >durable appliance is kept for at least 12 years--so how long would the author want the people to keep >their appliance's? And why is it any business or concern of the author if the PEOPLE buy a new appliance >weather they need it or not? What is wrong with remodeling their kitchen? That stimulates the economy->that is why we in the WEST are much wealthier than the non-free people in Russia and China--Marxism >equals non-freedom--people are not in control of their own lives--they have no property rights, etc. That >system is corrupt and evil--and only corrupt and evil people would advocate it........

here's my reply: But neither China nor Russia were communist states (or marxist), they were/are both state capitalist. In fact a communist state is a paradox: a communist society is defined as stateless, moneyless, classless society where means of production are democratically owned, I repeat: stateless. Also even though capitalism is working great for us in the western world we must never forget that it is not working for all the other capitalist countries in africa, south america and parts of asia.

Also happy reddit birthday OP