In the period from 1824 to 1833, the tendency was steadily in the former direction, but it was only in the latter part of it that it was made really efficient.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Many bought into the idea that America could go from a technology-based, export-oriented powerhouse to a services-led, consumption-based economy - and somehow still expect to prosper. That idea was flat wrong. Our economy tilted instead toward the quicker profits of financial services.
Efficiency innovations are a natural part of the economic cycle, but these are the innovations that streamline process and actually reduce the number of available jobs.
Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.
The whole action of the laws tended to increase the number of consumers of food and to diminish the number of producers, was due the invention of the Malthusian theory of population.
Look at what caused people to make a lot of money and you will see that usually it is in proportion to their production of what the society wanted.
Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply.
Back in the mid-1970s, we adopted some fairly ambitious goals to improve efficiency of our cars. What did we get? We got a tremendous boost in efficiency.
Two hundred years ago, industrialisation ruined the labour force. In the modern age, especially in the West or America, people who are 'efficient,' who can bracket their emotions off, tend to win. But at what cost to the rest of us?
Historically speaking, the French economy was largely driven by the demand side.
In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.