Declining Efficiency in the Economy

The paper discusses the concept of resource efficiency in the economy as a whole. This implies some unfoldings of the simple definition of efficiency as human satisfaction over throughput of resources. It is suggested, that the efficiency of the economic systems is declining in the countries with a high material standard of living. Examples are presented as are suggestions for how to improve the efficiency. These improvements, however, have a tendency to reduce the gross domestic product and hence are conflicting with the conventional political goals of growing GDP.