A Silicon Valley View of Technology and a Post-Material Society

Opinion: Why technology hasn't led to a rise in wealth.   (San Jose Mercury News, 2/16/2011)

Excerpt:     Tyler Cowen's e-book, "The Great Stagnation," has become the most debated nonfiction book so far this year. Cowen's core point is that up until sometime around 1974, the American economy was able to experience awesome growth by harvesting low-hanging fruit. There was cheap land to be exploited. There was the tremendous increase in education levels during the postwar world. There were technological revolutions occasioned by the spread of electricity, plastics and the car.

But that low-hanging fruit is exhausted, Cowen continues, and since 1974, the U.S. has experienced slower growth, slower increases in median income, slower job creation, slower productivity gains, slower life-expectancy improvements and slower rates of technological change. Cowen's data on these slowdowns is compelling and has withstood the scrutiny of the online reviewers. He argues that our society has hit a technological plateau.

But his evidence can be used to tell a related story. It could be that the nature of technological change isn't causing the slowdown but a shift in values. It could be that in an industrial economy, people develop a materialist mind-set and believe that improving their income is the same thing as improving their quality of life. But in an affluent, information-driven world, people embrace a post-materialist mind-set. They realize they can improve their quality of life without actually producing more wealth.