Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren

Has the standard of living been raised since the Industrial Revolution?

  • Yes. Even when taking account huge population growth

    Votes: 7 87.5%
  • No.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • I don't care.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    8
http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

A mostly ignored text, but a must read imo.

I pondered what I considered the central proposition in this essay, that is, that technological advances will both increase our standard of living and at the same time that we will have to work less to achieve it. I claim this has not happened on average even in rich countries like America, but that it has happened per person. In other words, had the population stayed constant, we would all be rich. Instead, what has happened is that the same pool of resources has been spread thinner to a huge population explosion and people living longer.

I believe that Keynes did not take these things into consideration as negative effects of technological advances. His function says:

Good life = f(technological advances).

I say

dx/dt = ax - bxy

Where x is Good Life, and b is the newborn rate given technological advances.

The predator/prey equation. In other words, soon to be born people (which technological advances itself accelerates) are predators to the existing populations (prey) standard of living.

This might also explain why we seek a class society (the living want seniority) and trickle down economics (government tries to dampen that seniority).
 
Quote from nitro:
----technological advances will increase our standard of living....
----we will have to work less to achieve it.
----this has not happened....
2-0-0-0 ? :confused:
 
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