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Growth!=Technological progress. I'm not sure what else there is to say. Do you realise you made this logical jump? Does it not need expanding upon or justifyin

by lsd5you 12y ago

Growth!=Technological progress. I'm not sure what else there is to say. Do you realise you made this logical jump? Does it not need expanding upon or justifying? Do you not think it might be the source of the difference other people have?

alasdair_ 12y ago
Exactly. Not just that but using GDP to measure growth is foolish. Want to increase GDP (and thus your proxy for growth?) Take a baseball bat and go smash every window and car you can find. Bam! GDP increases from all those new car sales.
randyrand 12y ago
To address growth != tech progress. You're right. per capita growth comes from a few things. 1, operating at max utilization. Full employment. Going from 50% to 90% will grow the GDP. 2, saving. Building on what we already have to improve. Building bridges, long lasting homes, etc to that we can be more efficient in the future. 3, technological progress (also finding oil deposits, etc) Tech progresss -> growth. That much is certain. It's certain that you cannot continue to have technological growth without economic growth. Name the 10 most important technological advancements of the 1900s and try to explain to me a scenario where those invention wouldn't cause growth. And its also certain that growing the economy by #1 and #2 above will allow more room for #3. So in a sense, you can, but it would be incredibly difficult to grow the economy without encouraging and making technological growth.
- randyrand 12y ago
  To further point #2. I think of it like an anthill. The antill might not have any growth if we look at it as a the rate of growth per year, (like we do GDP), but it will still grow in size. Same applies for the GDP of society.
aetherson 12y ago
But it does mean that people have access to that technological progress. And, to be clear, I don't mean in some kind of fuzzy way where if you have access to the technological progress, you will go out and be more economically productive. I mean: If ten years from now, your country's nominal GDP is exactly the same as it is today, but you have access to cool new technology that makes your life materially better, then economic metrics will attempt to capture that improvement and will say that you are now richer, ie, the economy has grown. So, for example, when we try to figure out the value of inflation, we take into account the fact that your smartphone today is "worth" more than the featurephone that you had ten years ago, and we say that if hypothetically the smartphone and the featurephone cost the same amount, then your money has deflated (ie, your money is worth more, ie you're richer at the same nominal amount of money). The metrics may or may not do a good job of putting a precise dollar figure on that, but they're trying, and if the technological progress is significant enough, and reaches a large enough population, then they'll put some dollar figure to it. Technological progress that does not improve the lives of significant numbers of people, of course, does not translate to technological growth. But I assume that is not what you're arguing for?
- lsd5you 12y ago
  If I was arguing for anything it was better argument! I think what I am looking for is not an explanation how technology results in growth, and how this gets measured, but rather acknowledgement of ways in which this is not the case. Especially in the marginal sense when discussing growth in the context of various policies e.g. interest rates. Still you are right in the sense that I am to an extent a growth skeptic. Off the top of my head, nominal growth can also be achieved through - population growth - increase in unsustainable resource extraction - destructive activity (war ...etc.) To address your other point, if people shared technology better, or upgraded every other cycle would they be significantly worse off? There are many other ways to improve our well being that are in part impeded by pursuit of growth.

by lsd5you 12y ago

alasdair_ 12y ago

Exactly. Not just that but using GDP to measure growth is foolish. Want to increase GDP (and thus your proxy for growth?) Take a baseball bat and go smash every window and car you can find. Bam! GDP increases from all those new car sales.

randyrand 12y ago

To address growth != tech progress. You're right. per capita growth comes from a few things. 1, operating at max utilization. Full employment. Going from 50% to 90% will grow the GDP. 2, saving. Building on what we already have to improve. Building bridges, long lasting homes, etc to that we can be more efficient in the future. 3, technological progress (also finding oil deposits, etc) Tech progresss -> growth. That much is certain. It's certain that you cannot continue to have technological growth without economic growth. Name the 10 most important technological advancements of the 1900s and try to explain to me a scenario where those invention wouldn't cause growth. And its also certain that growing the economy by #1 and #2 above will allow more room for #3. So in a sense, you can, but it would be incredibly difficult to grow the economy without encouraging and making technological growth.

randyrand 12y ago
To further point #2. I think of it like an anthill. The antill might not have any growth if we look at it as a the rate of growth per year, (like we do GDP), but it will still grow in size. Same applies for the GDP of society.

aetherson 12y ago

But it does mean that people have access to that technological progress. And, to be clear, I don't mean in some kind of fuzzy way where if you have access to the technological progress, you will go out and be more economically productive. I mean: If ten years from now, your country's nominal GDP is exactly the same as it is today, but you have access to cool new technology that makes your life materially better, then economic metrics will attempt to capture that improvement and will say that you are now richer, ie, the economy has grown. So, for example, when we try to figure out the value of inflation, we take into account the fact that your smartphone today is "worth" more than the featurephone that you had ten years ago, and we say that if hypothetically the smartphone and the featurephone cost the same amount, then your money has deflated (ie, your money is worth more, ie you're richer at the same nominal amount of money). The metrics may or may not do a good job of putting a precise dollar figure on that, but they're trying, and if the technological progress is significant enough, and reaches a large enough population, then they'll put some dollar figure to it. Technological progress that does not improve the lives of significant numbers of people, of course, does not translate to technological growth. But I assume that is not what you're arguing for?

lsd5you 12y ago
If I was arguing for anything it was better argument! I think what I am looking for is not an explanation how technology results in growth, and how this gets measured, but rather acknowledgement of ways in which this is not the case. Especially in the marginal sense when discussing growth in the context of various policies e.g. interest rates. Still you are right in the sense that I am to an extent a growth skeptic. Off the top of my head, nominal growth can also be achieved through - population growth - increase in unsustainable resource extraction - destructive activity (war ...etc.) To address your other point, if people shared technology better, or upgraded every other cycle would they be significantly worse off? There are many other ways to improve our well being that are in part impeded by pursuit of growth.