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Jevon's Paradox, as mentioned in the article, has a corollary: if you have decreased the cost of using a resource so much that new products are created to explo
by syntheweave 5y ago
Jevon's Paradox, as mentioned in the article, has a corollary: if you have decreased the cost of using a resource so much that new products are created to exploit it... then you have new products, which create job demand in different sectors.
For example, graphene production is gradually exiting the lab these days. Graphene is still really expensive. But in small quantities it can be blended to add strength to concrete, which already makes new kinds of concrete products possible - a small transitional step, improving existing construction methods. But as it gets cheaper, we might start to see all-graphene objects with completely new applications, which then transform entire categories of goods and services - a light, strong material using a plentiful resource. If graphene lives up to the ballyhoo, it'd be Plastics 2, Greener This Time.
The question of "enough jobs to go around" is something that can be expressed through capital deployment. When there is a hot new sector, capital rushes into it. So the profits in one sector can end up being harnessed by the others to finance their development, given functioning capital markets providing appropriate liquidity(hardly a constant throughout history). There are a lot of things we could be financing that don't have the right time horizons or paths to investment for our financial system, and we can't change our workforce allocations instantly.
Edit: I consistently misspelled "graphene"