alt Hacker NewsDon’t automation technologies improve the productivity of labor?
If I can make one widget per hour, and some new tool lets me make 10 widgets per hour?
Conventional economic theory suggests the gain will be split between the widget-maker and the widget-consumer, in proportions determined by the relative slopes of the supply-demand curves, but definitely the product will become somewhat cheaper.
sure, but take furniture - is high quality furniture cheaper today than 50 years ago, normalized by inflation? from my investigation the answer is no.