How Fast Is Modern Economic Growth?

-- Bradford DeLong (delong@econ.berkeley.edu), May 04, 2000

Answers

>Wasn't it "Edward" rather than >Robert Bellamy?

Touche...

-- Bradford DeLong (delong@econ.berkeley.edu), May 04, 2000.

>Brad, does that mean we're thirty times happier >than our ancestors?

Doug

Nope.

For one thing, such a measured increase in material wealth makes sense for those of us in the middle (or upper) class in the industrial core only: the invention of the jet airplane adds to your quality of life only if you're rich enough to take plane flights.

For another, happiness is not that closely related to wealth, as Richard Easterlin keeps on arguing.

On the other hand, suppose you threatened to take me back in time and have me born not in 1960 but in 1860. I would pay everything I have to avoid it, for I would be dead of pneumonia at the age of 5...

And I, at least, cannot think of anyone in 1900 whom I would regard as being as well-off in a material-welfare sense as I am today...

Contributed by Brad DeLong (delong@econ.berkeley.edu) on March 17, 2000.

-- Bradford DeLong (delong@econ.berkeley.edu), May 04, 2000.

I do feel somewhat sorry for what I will miss...

But mostly I feel happy that my grandchildren will (with luck) have more capabilities and options than I have...

Brad DeLong

-- Bradford DeLong (delong@econ.berkeley.edu), May 04, 2000.

Now, a couple of reactions to your piece:

1. I like your points, and I of course agree that material wealth is a lot higher than it was in 1890. I think your top three items (health care, utilities, information goods) are particularly important, and they increase my utility. However, in some sense I'm not sure people are *happier* than they were 110 years ago, and I wonder if economics has anything to say about this.

Certainly we see lots of people complaining that they don't have enough time, that the rat race is overwhelming them, and that families don't manage enough "quality time" with each other. I feel there must be some truth there... but maybe I'm jaded by my perspective as an assistant professor who's spent the last several years worrying about whether I'm going to be able to write enough clever papers to get tenure.

2. I disagree with your assessment of _Looking Backward_. I read it just last year, and really enjoyed it. I didn't think it was poorly written. I agree that it was really fun to note the ironies such as the music-distribution system. It's true that some problems have been solved way beyond Bellamy's imagination, but other problems of the human condition (poverty, underprovision of public goods) remain as bad as they were back then.

Oh, and I think you misnamed the author... Wasn't it "Edward" rather than Robert Bellamy?

Thanks for an interesting piece. I look Contributed by David Lucking-Reiley (reiley@vanderbilt.edu) on March 17, 2000.

-- David Lucking-Reiley (reiley@vanderbilt.edu), May 04, 2000.

Brad, does that mean we're thirty times happier than our ancestors?

Dou Contributed by Doug Henwood (dhenwood@panix.com) on March 17, 2000.

-- Doug Henwood (dhenwood@panix.com), May 04, 2000.

>On the other hand, suppose you threatened to take >me back in time and have me born not in 1960 but >in 1860. I would pay everything I have to avoid >it, for I would be dead of pneumonia at the age >of 5... > >And I, at least, cannot think of anyone in 1900 >whom I would regard as being as well-off in a >material-welfare sense as I am today...

True, but there's no such thing as time travel, and I'm pretty sure there never will be.

Let's turn that around: do you feel sad that people will probably be materially richer in ways we can't even imagine - leaving aside the possiblities of ecological catastrophe or nuclear war - in 2100 Contributed by Doug Henwood (dhenwood@panix.com) on March 17, 2000.

-- Doug Henwood (dhenwood@panix.com), May 04, 2000.