Another possibility is that efficiency is an appropriate yardstick, but the criteria of efficiency are not the criteria that actually do the most good for the most people. One problem is the underlying assumption that more wealth (“social welfare” they call it) is automagically preferable over less wealth, and that whatever social problems exist would be worse were the GDP smaller. One problem with this is, it’s only a few derivational steps away from the conclusion that we live in the Best of All Possible Worlds™.

Perhaps it is OK to keep the definition of efficiency as “ratio of outputs to inputs” but define outputs in terms of shared goals such as minimizing the percentage of the population that isn’t in some sense “making it,” or put another way, maximizing the “survival rate” of the species. Freedom, of course, if of utmost importance, so maximizing the amount of freedom for the inputs is also part of a freedom-friendly version of efficiency.