Rev. Conj. Aust. | Porto Alegre | v.9, n.45 | p.5-13 | jan./março. 2018 | ISSN: 2178-8839 5 BEYOND ECONOMIC GROWTH: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOMENT AS AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH Além do crescimento econômico: desenvolvimento sustentável como uma abordagem alternativa Thauan Santos 1 Introduction At all times we hear on the news and read in the headlines that the economy of a particular country grew or declined. The metric is very simple: growing is a proxy for a Ȥgood jobȥ, yet declining for a Ȥbad jobȥ. The most used measure for such analysis is the well-known gross domestic product (GDP), which can be understood as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country during a given period. This measure was developed during the 1930Ȣs and 1940Ȣs, after the Great Depression and the World Wars. In the post-World War II, some events took place, such as the signing of the Bretton Woods agreements, the initial discussions that would lead to the uprising of the United Nations (UN) and to the bipolar environment of the Cold War. Needless to say, the competition between the two sides of the bipolar war was expressed in measurable outcomes, and the GDP measure became the main objective pursued by countries and it undoubtedly grew into the flagship among these competing models. The point is that this international structure guided by economic growth is the result of structural models of international economic and financial relations (EICHENGREEN, 2018; GILPIN, 2016). These outcomes and measures continue to be references for trade flows and international investments as well as to the credibility (or not) of the economies. Obviously, its relevance ends up becoming a Ȥself -fulfilling prophecyȥ, that makes people and different countries not even question these data, but seek them above everything – resulting in the maintenance of the international productive and financial system status quo (YOSHINO et al., 2018). The use of GDP as a metric to evaluate development is already outdated and old fashioned, since it only considers economic growth without taking into account the negative externalities of production on the environment and the scarcity of natural resources. In this way, the following section will present in more 1 Thauan Santos é professor adjunto da Escola de Guerra Naval (EGN) e pesquisador do Conselho Latino-Americano de Ciências Sociais (CLACSO). Foi professor da UFRJ, UERJ e PUC-Rio. Email: santos.thauan@gmail.com