Overproduction and Stagnation

 

 
“Productivity gains in steel may reduce the number of jobs in steel, but they create jobs elsewhere (if only by lowering the price of steel, and therefore releasing money to be spent on other things); advanced countries may lose garment industry jobs to developing-country exports, but they gain other jobs producing the goods that those countries buy with their new export income. To observe that productivity growth in a particular industry reduces employment in that same industry tells us nothing about whether productivity growth in the economy as a whole reduces employment in the economy as a whole.  ”
 
and later on:
 
“Most economists and business leaders blame the long-term rise in European unemployment on “Eurosclerosis”, a condition brought on by excessive taxation and regulation. But many of Europe’s trade union leaders and some of its political leaders have concluded instead that there simply is not enough work to go around, and that this problem is becoming ever more acute as labor productivity rises. . . . the concept even received a somewhat blurry endorsement in the European Commission’s 1993 White Paper Growth, Competitiveness, Employment. ”
 
The first paragraph is the core of the explanation as to why we want innovation.   It frees up resources for other activities.   No innovation, no technology, and we are still all farmers….