Quotation of the Day
21st April 2015
Don Boudreaux, a Real Economist:
Examples of labor-saving technology that were created before the Industrial Revolution include the wheel, the lever, the pulley, the bucket, the barrel, the knife, the domesticated ox and horse, the fishing net, and moveable type. Examples of such technology created after that revolution are even more numerous; they include the harnessing of electricity, the internal-combustion engine, the assembly line, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, refrigeration, and, of course, today’s many IT marvels. Yet history knows no example of the introduction of labor-saving technology that caused permanent and widespread increases in involuntary human idleness. And at least since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, all advances in such technology in market economies have been followed by improvements in the living standards of the masses – including (contrary to Ms. Tufekci’s suggestion) those advances introduced during the past few decades.
I certainly hope he’s right.