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The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries
by SadCanadian 5y ago
The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries that did more for humanity's living standards than the previous millennium.
The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be?
Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.
- DubiousPusher 5y agoWe don't explicitly need growth though. Average productivity is still what it is (very high) even without growth. The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie. In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.