You're getting it all mixed up. The extra cost of hiring a single ditch digger to do the job is the forgone cost of letting a dude with a giant earth-mover hand

You're getting it all mixed up. The extra cost of hiring a single ditch digger to do the job is the forgone cost of letting a dude with a giant earth-mover handle the job. You're implying that we're becoming less productive, that's totally untrue. The same argument has been made about the motor vehicle, cotton gin, etc.