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by pdonis 1575 days ago
> you conflate value and price here

I'm not doing that. I'm pointing out that the author of this paper is doing that. He is assuming that everything of value is captured in the GDP, i.e., in money spent. But as you acknowledge, this is false, and that invalidates his argument.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

The Jevons paradox does not say things don't become cheaper when their cost of production is reduced. So it is not an argument against the statement of mine that you were responding to here.

Also, if we are talking about life-essential resources like food (or air), which was what I was talking about in the comment you responded to here, the Jevons paradox is of limited applicability if it applies at all, because demand for such resources is constrained. Even if food were free, people would not eat an unlimited amount of it, any more than they now breathe an unlimited amount of air because air is free. The most important factor driving an increase in total consumption of such resources is population increase, so if population levels off, the resources consumed for these life-essential things will be naturally limited no matter how cheap they become.