Between keeping the local river clean and swimming in it occasionally, and constructing a swimming pool even at the cost of polluting the river, for the purpose of swimming, the latter is better for the flow of money. In a society obsessed with raising GDP, the latter is better, but looking at this with just GDP as a factor feels a bit strange.
If we just want cash flow, isn’t it better to work in smaller community scales rather than national scales? Rather than producing for consumers that we’ll never meet, it’s nicer to produce for people that we feel personal connections. The meaning of production also feels understandable. For example, the meaning of making an eco-friendly car is more easily grasped if we see someone driving one, even if the locals are using their eco-car as a ‘get-out-jail-free card’ for driving walkable distances, or distances where the train is more friendly.
If there’s no need for cash flow, there are methods such as self-sufficiency, trades, local currencies. However, if, for example, a farmer takes their plentiful eggplants for swapping, only to find that everyone else had made numerous eggplants, then there is no value. It’s better to have something that only you can make. Thus there is a pressure for separating labors.