Some axioms:
- We want maximum consumption
- Consumers decides what is value and hence maximum consumption
- Everyone decides for themselves what they want to produce and consume
- No violence
So a good economy is where the capital (the tools and resources for production) is steered towards production of what consumers wants.
And where the fraction of what is produced to go towards capital (the savings rate) is decided by all actors.
You're axioms seem reasonable. But what if I want to 'consume' lots of time with my friends, clean water and air, and plenty of natural beauty? Only the economy of nature (earth's economy) can provide clean net clean water and air. Yes, we have air filters and can distill water, but those processes produce far more pollution than remove.
You are the one to decide how much of your time you want to sell, how much of your money you want to spend, and how much to invest or save. It is the psychical advantage, and if you feel better when you consume in such a way that the environment is preserved, that is up to you. You can of course object to others destroying your environment, but that is more of a rights issue, and not about maximizing wealth.
Are you saying that we have all have different wants and needs, and when things are for the greater good, as in meeting more wants than creating needs, than that is good for the economy? In that case, slavery would be very good for the economy, so long as not more than 49% of people were enslaved. And I suppose slavery was very good for lots of people. But that should make it clear that a good economy is not something any self-interested individual would strive for, as they would strive for their own well being, and not the greater good. There is also the confounding factor of people not knowing what they actually want, or being confused by advertising and bad advice. Given these reasons, I will stick with the conclusion of my O.P., that a good or bad economy is not measurable concept and lies in the eye of the beholder.
There is no greater good, that is a fallacy designed to make you a slave. You can not be a slave really, but your masters, and sometimes yourself, can believe it.
As Adam Smith explained, due to the tendency to save, and the fact that capital increases productivity, there is a natural increase in wealth going on in the world. And again, wealth is what you perceive as wealth, nobody can say for you what is valuable. So I don't disagree with you, but I think I expressed it more correctly in accordance with economic terminology.
And wealth and consumption has nothing to do with destroying the nature. All material goods come from nature when you go to the bottom of it, so some use of nature is necessary, but increased wealth can just as well come from the increased productivity of work as services.
If you prefer, you could easily unite goods and services into only services, where you think of every material good as providing a service for you. A house provides shelter, a shoe provides protection for your feet and so on. A better shoe could be produced with work, using the same amount of land factors as the previous, lesser shoe.
