It’s usually mocked today because while he was right that today we are fantastically richer than 1930, we still work quite substantial hours and the “ordinary person with no special talents” is still remarkably economically productive.
But I think there’s a sense in which we should ask the question of whether we are approaching the point where we’ve solved the “economic problem”. I tend to think we will and that while there will still be wants and progress on the economic end, much of the rest of history might proceed on an axis of thinking about the arts or purpose and in general, finding meaning beyond prosperity.
But perhaps hedonism really is the final frontier.
If we still have 'wants,' there will be hedonic-or-preference-based returns to acquiring more resources, so the economic problem will persist in that sense, but maybe after a lot of possibilities have been exhausted, we bid down willingness to spend on transactions costs or discovery/exploration costs and accept that we're at the material frontier.
This is a radically different world though, like definitely deeply transhuman. At all time before that, I suspect there will be returns to work or at least giving up various kinds of capital to open up better consumption opportunities.
On art and meaning, I don't think these are separate from material considerations. You can build a bigger brain or different aesthetic-perceptual facilities with more (scarce) matter.
This is definitely the fun question. I really like Keynes on this question— http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
It’s usually mocked today because while he was right that today we are fantastically richer than 1930, we still work quite substantial hours and the “ordinary person with no special talents” is still remarkably economically productive.
But I think there’s a sense in which we should ask the question of whether we are approaching the point where we’ve solved the “economic problem”. I tend to think we will and that while there will still be wants and progress on the economic end, much of the rest of history might proceed on an axis of thinking about the arts or purpose and in general, finding meaning beyond prosperity.
But perhaps hedonism really is the final frontier.
If we still have 'wants,' there will be hedonic-or-preference-based returns to acquiring more resources, so the economic problem will persist in that sense, but maybe after a lot of possibilities have been exhausted, we bid down willingness to spend on transactions costs or discovery/exploration costs and accept that we're at the material frontier.
This is a radically different world though, like definitely deeply transhuman. At all time before that, I suspect there will be returns to work or at least giving up various kinds of capital to open up better consumption opportunities.
On art and meaning, I don't think these are separate from material considerations. You can build a bigger brain or different aesthetic-perceptual facilities with more (scarce) matter.