From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 21:31:15 MDT
Hal writes
> For an economy, it's not quite the same, because most everything
> that is produced gets used. But where the analogous choice arises is
> in allocating resources towards investing in capital-producing items,
> versus producing short-term consumable items. By investing in long term
> growth items, society defers its current gratification and will produce
> more in the long run.
To me, this emphasizes a "central control" perspective.
It's a fine way to look at an economy if you are JS and
are thinking of implementing a five-year plan.
> We know, therefore, how to increase growth in the long run: defer present
> gratification. At the individual level, save more of your income.
> At an economic level, build more industrial robots and fewer CD players.
And just what will the industrial robots be building, now?
Not more CD players, one assumes.
But producing CD players is exactly the *right* thing to do if
that is what people are willing to hold down jobs in order to
get to get money to buy them.
> The question is not really how to increase growth, in this crude model;
> the question is whether to do so. That is a matter of social values,
> of how much we want the lives of our children to be better versus wanting
> our own lives to be better.
Well, "I am a future generation too!" is my response whenever
anyone talks about saving something for a future generation.
(And I said that before cryonics!) 8^D
I think that it is not a matter of values, because we are not
smart enough to directly implement our values via the dismal
science.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jul 07 2003 - 21:43:10 MDT