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by nwah1
951 days ago
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To me the key issue is the Law of Rent. It helps explain issues like Elizabeth Warren's Two-Income Trap. Why does technological progress not seem to result in overall increasing leisure and standard of living? That is why Henry George titled his book "Progress and Poverty". He was explaining that paradox using the law of rent developed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and proposing their solution with a megaphone. |
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First off it did: the standard of living of anyone in a Western/industrialized society is ridiculously higher than 100 years ago. And even for less well-developed countries reduced absolute poverty and the diffusion of technology (Germ Theory, vaccines, mobile phones) has done wonders.
One interesting metric is that the cost/effort of being about to produce one hour of light has absolutely plummeted over time:
* https://www.vox.com/2015/6/9/8749751/historic-cost-of-lighti...
As Terry Pratchett observed:
> You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'.
* http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.pratchett/msg/ee9e9fb...
If you're talking about working hours:
> Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes --those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs-a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.
[…]
> For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
* John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930)
* http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
An essay putting forward / hypothesizing four reasons on why the above did not happen (We haven't spread the wealth around enough; People actually love working; There's no limit to human desires; Leisure is expensive):
* https://www.vox.com/2014/11/20/7254877/keynes-work-leisure