And now for something completely different...

[kandrathe]

Malthus is smiling in his grave.

I don't predict the catastrophe he does, only increased levels of pain and destabilization. In the end, those with the guns will end up with the butter.

I agree, and I can happily tell you first hand that this is changing. Flexible hours and working from home are heavily used at many companies. However, as long as business involves people who have a limited timeframe each day to communicate there will be bottlenecks (as you described).

Here is where leadership would help. If they can implement day light savings time shifts to make better use of daylight, then they can suggest a program of work day changes to make better use of roads, to spread the peak demand for energy, or promote non commuting altogether.

This paragraph makes a point in every direction. On one hand we have a economic system which is entirely dependent upon workers working and on the other workers have lost the power to cause change.:)

You misunderstood. The economic system is built around a management and labor relationship where every worker makes widgets. Whoever can make the widget cheapest wins. Look at the inefficiencies of the family farm, and thus the death of them. The amount of land being tilled is roughly the same, but it is being done by corporations with the largest most efficient equipment. The social consequences of displacing people from agriculture were not considered, nor the social consequences of aggregating more and more people into cities where corporations are now responsible for growing the food to feed them. Likewise, automation, has displaced certain workers and yes, created other new types of employment, but employment statistics do show that the growth of service sector jobs has ballooned while others have waned. So, instead of working at the GM plant building the car, you work at Jiffy Lube changing the oil of the Jaguar owned by the robotics technician who cares for the robots at GM plant.

1) The view that technology is a net destroyer of jobs is incorrect. Certain part of the economy will suffer but others will thrive. In the long run, the net result will be more jobs.

And, in an innovation free environment, growth in output requires a proportional growth in employment. But, in an innovation rich environment, some of the workers becomes superfluous, while there is a smaller demand for some new types of workers who care for the robots. I guess another question is; How many pairs of Levi jeans do you really need? If everybody buys two or three pairs, rather than the one they need does that not triple the value of Levi Strauss?

2) Technology enables greater worker specialization. This enables people to focus doing what they want and earn a living doing it. (Think absolute vs relative advantage).

Maybe. I'm a technologist, and I've spent the last 30 years innovating people out of their jobs. I've helped 100's of companies "trim the fat", and run more efficient operations. From what I can tell, the reduction in costs helped to increase profits which kept their stocks competitive and made their shareholders temporarily happy for a few months. At no time did any company ever decide that the innovation would make the work easier, or better for the workers. The motivation is always to trim head count. At my last gig, one project was to redesigned the college admissions process. We figured out a way to trim 50 hours from the processing of every application, increasing the response time to the potential student from two weeks to three days. So, better efficiency, and higher "customer satisfaction", and a cost savings of four full time office workers in the students admissions office. No jobs were created here.

3) There are jobs where you can work a 30 hour work week and there are jobs where you can’t because of competition.

That would be because you need to convince Pete to buy two triple latte macchiato's, at $3 a pop, each day, rather than his usual 1$ plain coffee at breakfast.

What is the limit to how efficient a system can get?

That really depends upon the system. I really should write a computer model of this closed 100,000 person town to see what the economic possibilities are. Most companies are built on the premise of a growing market, and increasing market share. One problem I see is that the sum of the wages of the 100,000 are also the total expenditure on goods and services. Corporate costs are more than just labor, so there is a net loss in the system.

To outline that problem further, say you just had one person, who bought all they needed from one company (Costco), where they were the only employee, earn $100k per year, and spends $90k for clothing, food, and housing. Now, our company Costco, only earned $90K, but has to pay a $100K salary, and pay for all the expenses of getting the food, clothing, and house for our employee. So they are forced to reduce the salary to $60K to cover expenses. Rinse, repeat until Costco is bankrupt and our employee is out of a job.

This is what I mean by rethinking economics. I think we need to make an economy prosperous in a closed system like this, without depending on population growth, imports, or exports. Ultimately, the balance of the equation is where each person works more than just the amount needed (in productivity equivalences) to feed, cloth, and house them self with some left over for entertainment. This means our one employee at Costco from above needs to produce greater than one person in productivity each year, and then the excess has saved for next year. It's an ancient idea, going back to the grain bins of the pharaohs.

I would contend that this is based on human ingenuity. Look at the how the standard of living has dramatically increased over the last hundred years, Matlhus be damned. Where will the next innovation come from? Unfortunately seems like a black swan to me, but if you know clue me in and we'll make a lot of money

Along with the wealth gap between the "haves" and "have nots", there is also a technology gap where the "have nots" are left behind as well. All the innovation in the world cannot/will not remove the slums of Mumbai.