An excellent point. Kurzweil says something similar, that the radical drop in prices in computers and communications devices are in essence deflationary, and are rarely taken into consideration by economists.

Once information technologies take hold in all other areas of our economy, radical deflation will hit them, too. Especially as 3D printers are upgraded to nanotech replicators.

At that point, economic scarcities will vanish forever and our guest’s worries about loss of jobs will vanish with them.

In fairness, in the book (and I think in our discussion, too) Martin acknowledges that this is not a new trend and not a new argument. His point is that Luddite arguments that were wrong in the past eventually become tue in the face of accelerating technological development. Your point about the offsetting benefits of the decreasing cost of goods was discussed in part two of the series with Cory Doctorow. We’ll also be exploring that further next week in part 3.

In 1880, about 70% of U.S. jobs were in agriculture. Now about 3% are. Those jobs were lost to efficiency, productivity and automation improvements. In 1970, IBM employed about 400,000 people, now they employ about 150,000. Most of those lost jobs are clerical jobs that MS Office and email have eliminated. If Martin’s economic theories held water, his doomsday would already have arrived. Simi

If Martin lived in 1900 and saw 70% of U.S. jobs dissapearing, he would feel the same way he does now about world wide manufacturing jobs. If his foresight was as deficient then as it is now, he would not know that IT Guy, Pizza Delivery Guy, High School Football Coach, Newscaster, Taxi-Driver, Drug Dealer, Barista or Electrical Engineering jobs would be coming to replace them. New types of jobs will come along.

What’s more, if productive labor is so cheap as to be almost free, that means more money can be spent on design. If labor costs approach zero, you can but a new product for the cost of material, which means most people will need less money to maintain their standard of living.

We covered your question.