Yeah, I tend to subscribe to the “slightly less amazing progress” view rather than the “stagnation” view, although I think that I would not include the word “slightly.”
So much of our economic growth of the last century is implementing the technological innovations made between 1870 and 1914.
We may never see a burst of technological innovations like during that period, or we might have another one in the future.
Too much of the stagnation hypothesis is based on an assumption of what the rate of technological innovation should be as opposed to what it actually is.
Too many progress researchers assume that economic growth and technological innovation should be exponential and then are shocked when real world data conflicts with their assumptions. Then they blame some other factor rather than their assumption of exponential growth.
The variety would be extremely limitied, and quite likely the quality not nearly as good. Just a few examples. No fresh fruit or vegetables except in local season. And canning processes were not as good as today. Few if any fruits or vegetables that couldn't be grown locally. And no modern sweet corn. (We ate regular yellow field corn until the middle 1960s in my childhood home.)
No frozen foods. The quality of the meat was much lower. No commercial breakfast cereals or such. Maybe rolled oats. I'm not sure when Quaker Oats was first sold. My grandmother had a barrel for rolled oats well into the late 1950s. Grits, for those who like them.
Very limited selection of cheese.
And without freeze drying "several years supply of food" would probably be harder than you think.
My family was hardcore home canning and preservation right up into the early 1980s, and we still do some foods because we like the way they taste. (Home made sauerkraut is vastly superior to any commercial kraut. And we love home canned green beans. Everything else we used to can we now buy, although I still can heritage tomatoes and make my own salsa and canned/dried hot peppers.)
For fun, see if yu can find what the average American family ate in 1900. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet hard money it was way less and way different than today.
Another way to think about it is that progress has been made more recently in areas that people ultimately care more about. For example, even if progress in, say, materials science isn't what it was 50 years ago, we have essentially made boredom obsolete. That is a big change in what was once an essential element of The human condition!
"February 3, 2011 at 7:00 p.m." is what it says at the beginning if this post. I wish that anything that I write would hold up as well for so long. At first I thought that there should be some updating annotations, but I fear that it would be all crowing and no eating crow, so it is just as well.
Yes, of course the CPI is biased due to quality of the market basket rising over time. Yes, who wants 1900 quality goods in general, compared to 2000 quality goods in general. The real problem with inflation, whether it's measured imperfectly or not, is the transfer of control over real resources from the hands of private citizens to the hands of government operatives.
Bureau produced measures of price inflation are pretty much useless and meaningless; consider the source. Everyone who buys food knows pretty much all they need to know about how high inflation is.
As for the great stagnation --- oops; just another Malthusian pronouncement. Big things generally grow more slowly than small things. More or less an iron law.
Yeah, I tend to subscribe to the “slightly less amazing progress” view rather than the “stagnation” view, although I think that I would not include the word “slightly.”
So much of our economic growth of the last century is implementing the technological innovations made between 1870 and 1914.
https://techratchet.com/2020/01/01/book-review-creating-the-twentieth-century-by-vaclav-smil/
We may never see a burst of technological innovations like during that period, or we might have another one in the future.
Too much of the stagnation hypothesis is based on an assumption of what the rate of technological innovation should be as opposed to what it actually is.
Too many progress researchers assume that economic growth and technological innovation should be exponential and then are shocked when real world data conflicts with their assumptions. Then they blame some other factor rather than their assumption of exponential growth.
Interesting. Econ is definitely not my area. But it seems both things are true.
I would much rather spend a certain sum today to buy a car today, than to spend the same sum today to buy a fleet of Model T’s.
I was likely able to get more of the “basket of goods” with a certain sum last year, than I would be with the same sum today.
How does one square those 2 things?
> Most of us would rather have $1000 nominal dollars to spend on year 2000 goods than $1000 nominal dollars to spend on year 1900 goods.
Is that true? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the thought experiment. Wouldn't that buy you e.g. several years supply of food in 1900?
The variety would be extremely limitied, and quite likely the quality not nearly as good. Just a few examples. No fresh fruit or vegetables except in local season. And canning processes were not as good as today. Few if any fruits or vegetables that couldn't be grown locally. And no modern sweet corn. (We ate regular yellow field corn until the middle 1960s in my childhood home.)
No frozen foods. The quality of the meat was much lower. No commercial breakfast cereals or such. Maybe rolled oats. I'm not sure when Quaker Oats was first sold. My grandmother had a barrel for rolled oats well into the late 1950s. Grits, for those who like them.
Very limited selection of cheese.
And without freeze drying "several years supply of food" would probably be harder than you think.
My family was hardcore home canning and preservation right up into the early 1980s, and we still do some foods because we like the way they taste. (Home made sauerkraut is vastly superior to any commercial kraut. And we love home canned green beans. Everything else we used to can we now buy, although I still can heritage tomatoes and make my own salsa and canned/dried hot peppers.)
For fun, see if yu can find what the average American family ate in 1900. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet hard money it was way less and way different than today.
Another way to think about it is that progress has been made more recently in areas that people ultimately care more about. For example, even if progress in, say, materials science isn't what it was 50 years ago, we have essentially made boredom obsolete. That is a big change in what was once an essential element of The human condition!
"February 3, 2011 at 7:00 p.m." is what it says at the beginning if this post. I wish that anything that I write would hold up as well for so long. At first I thought that there should be some updating annotations, but I fear that it would be all crowing and no eating crow, so it is just as well.
Yes, of course the CPI is biased due to quality of the market basket rising over time. Yes, who wants 1900 quality goods in general, compared to 2000 quality goods in general. The real problem with inflation, whether it's measured imperfectly or not, is the transfer of control over real resources from the hands of private citizens to the hands of government operatives.
Bureau produced measures of price inflation are pretty much useless and meaningless; consider the source. Everyone who buys food knows pretty much all they need to know about how high inflation is.
As for the great stagnation --- oops; just another Malthusian pronouncement. Big things generally grow more slowly than small things. More or less an iron law.