GDP growth as a measure of economic health of a society is a bad rule.

Here's a better rule: Completely disregard any claim about economic health, sustainability, well-being etc. if it's based on GDP.

GDP is a measure that deserves no respect and the mere use of it has caused a lot of harm to the world.

Analysis with numbers is only an oppinion.

Sure, GDP isn't a perfect measure, but if grows odds it's a good thing.

Numbers aren't the inherent problem, the problem is which numbers you use. GDP is among the worst choices for which numbers to evaluate.

GDP growing is NOT a good thing per se. It does a mix of capturing how much productivity is being commercialized (if we all paid our neighbors to do our household chores, GDP would double or something instantly with zero productivity gain), how much pay is going to non-productive or even counterproductive work (see the phenomenon of bullshit jobs^1) and ignoring externalities (growth in fossil fuel extraction and consumption, for example is overall negative for society).

It's not useful to even assume that GDP growth correlates with positive economic status in measures we actually want (i.e. measurements of overall long-term prosperity)

^1: https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Sure there are degenerate aspects captured by GDP.

But at a macro level those seem unlikely to dominate the development.

If GDP is increased by disposing nuclear waste in international waters that's obviously bad. But generally speaking degenerate trends like that don't dominate economic development. I hope :)

Better perspective:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/five-measures-of-grow... (note that World Economic Forum is far from some radical hippy organization)

Another perspective: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/12/doughn...

There are simple places where growth necessarily means we're beyond some limit and causing more problems the more we grow. Growth is not the goal, the goal is well-being and health. Growth is only the goal when we're under the level that maximizes well-being and have room to grow before problems start getting exacerbated.

> It's problems are more corruption and political than anything else.

So it's different from any other country how?

If you read the history of Madagascar, you'll find a rolling disaster of civil war, extreme corruption, and barely functioning government systems with few consistently protected human rights. Some of that is finally, maybe, starting to turn in a positive direction with increased stability.

Transparency International ranks Madagascar at #155 on their corruption perception index. That's not a slightly bad ranking, that means they barely have a functioning system because it's so riddled with corruption. Their neighbors on the ranking are: Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Haiti, Myanmar, etc. Venezuela for reference is presently #169.

So that's one way they're (unfortunately) different.

Heritage ranks Madagascar #119 on their economic freedom index. They receive a 32/100 score on property rights, 19/100 on government integrity, 21/100 on judicial. Their summary on rule of law:

"Although the legal structure provides protections for private property rights and secured interests in property are recognized if not entirely enforced, the vast majority of farmers do not hold the official rights to their land. A lack of training, resources, and personnel hampers judicial effectiveness, and case backlogs are lengthy. Corruption is pervasive at all levels of government."