Technological Progress Ever Overcome Scarcity?

¶ … technological progress ever overcome scarcity? While some hope that eventually, technology will be so advanced, it will be able to provide everyone on earth with everything needed, it is unlikely that will happen. There has always been technology, and it has always advanced. The horse-drawn plow, for example, was an advance over the technology of the hand-held tiller; yet, when horses began to be used in agriculture, scarcity did not disappear. The Industrial Revolution, by creating many goods quickly and cheaply, might also have ended scarcity, but it did not.

It is possible to contend that the current technological advances are quantum leaps over those older varieties, and should therefore end scarcity. The facts, however, indicate otherwise. It is not, in fact, technology- -- either lack or abundance thereof -- that creates scarcity, but rather the behaviors of people and their institutions. Introduction In order to predict whether or not technological progress will overcome scarcity, it is important to understand two factors in the equation: technology and scarcity. Technology "enables activities but lies dormant unless activated" (Creating technology Web site).

The same could be true for scarcity, in an economic sense. It does not just happen by natural forces, like rain or the scarcity of rain. Arguably, it happens because of failures of distribution even when there is otherwise an abundance of the commodity in question -- water, for example, a commodity that will be looked at in more detail later. For surely, ever since the Romans built aqueducts through the Alps, mankind has had the technologies to provide water virtually for everyone on the planet.

There is only one known society in which scarcity was diminished, at least within one or a few cultures, by means of technology. That society is the Federation on TV's Star Trek; according to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenbury, the society depicted then is "supposed to be a Technologically more advanced, and thus, more harmonious and enlightened place than the present" (Hantke 2003 518+). It is logical -- as Mr. Spock might say -- to wonder whether that is actually possible, even in this fictional world.

Future technology "is always conceptualized in terms of an older, already existing technology (e.g., computers are seen as more sophisticated typewriters or calculators; space 'ships' are imagined as variants of their sea-going vessels)" (Hanktke 2003 518+). This is a concept that would also, therefore (to be logical) transport today's problems of scarcity to that future world, perhaps just redesigned as the computers are redesigned and the boats become starships but still perform the same old functions.

Hantke takes the analogy further, comparing the bridge of the starship Enterprise to a bourgeois living room; Picard is the paterfamilias in his recliner, barking orders to the 'family' and so on. If that is accepted, then -- logically -- it must also be true that "high-tech command centers, do not exist outside of or separate from social practices" (Hantke 2003 518+). Therefore, it is social practices, ultimately, that will determine whether the economic problems of scarcity can be overcome by technological means.

Hantke takes his analogies to the edges of the galaxy. He compares the habit of early humankind of bludgeoning his enemies to death with a length of bone to raining down deadly particles from a space ship. In short, technology notwithstanding, there is nothing new on earth. Not a turning away from aggression, and arguably not a turning away from the politics and economics of scarcity.

They are possibly as ingrained in the human psyche as the need to be bigger, better or faster than someone else (as all that bludgeoning with bones and raining of particles attests), and therefore, always with us. However, there are some recent bona fide economic/political/cultural investigations that point in the same direction as this dissection of the culture's major recent contribution to world fiction, the space saga.

Support for the continuation of scarcity despite technological progress In one form of utopian society, the sort that technological progress might be assumed to produce in some models, everyone would have sufficient supply (money, wampum, food, barbed wire, or whatever the measure of wealth was) so that no one would be regarded as disadvantaged, or lower on the totem pole, or suffering from scarcity -- however, one wants to characterize the condition of not having enough of what is needed.

It cannot be argued that technological innovation has not proceeded rapidly in the U.S. since the 1970s. In fact, one of the linchpins of modern industrial belief is Moore's Law, which is supposed to have predicted doubling of technological capacity, at least in computer chips, every 18 months (Tuomi 2002 unpaged). That's not literally what Moore said, and not literally what he predicted. However, it is useful as a working concept to display why such enormous advancement has not, to date, wiped out scarcity and is unlikely to do so.

Without connecting technology directly to the economic conditions prevalent, it is possible to see that if diminished scarcity, as measured by wages and income, was expected, it did not happen. Since the 1970s, income and wage inequality have risen in the United States as well as in several other nations (Caselli 1999 78-102). One could posit, from that, a scenario in which those who were gaining income and wealth were forcing at least some of the lowest echelons into scarcity.

Caselli notes that various explanations have been offered; "a growing consensus attributes a significant role to skill-biased technical change" (Caselli 1999 78-102). In other words, as more highly skilled workers are needed to create the objects of technology, and in fact to create new technologies, the workers lacking those abilities are pushed farther down the economic ladder; in many cases, they are made redundant by precisely the technological progress being created (faster and faster if one uses Moore's Law of exponential increase) by the upper level.

The result, then, is more scarcity among some populations, and arguably deeper and more persistent scarcity as well. Caselli calls this a de-skilling revolution; it is difficult to see how it could be anything other than a scarcity enhancer. Into such an environment, it seems ridiculous to introduce the problems of technology transfer from university to industry, yet that transfer has a great effect on the progress of technology, and thus on the creation of either abundance or scarcity.

Lee compares the problem to turf wars, with each side wanting to carve out as much territory as possible. In some respects, the universities want to hoard their research results. In addition, the notion of scarcity is central to the debate, or at least central to the discomfort university researchers often feel, according to Lee (1998 69+), about handing over their discoveries to corporations, even in return for money to continue to make technological advances possible.

"Assuming the scarcity of government funding for research, it is not too difficult to anticipate that university-industry collaboration at the firm level would grow in proportion to industry support, but this growth will not continue unabated. The preservation of intellectual freedom represents a core value of the university, and the respondents in this survey were very much concerned about a possible erosion of this core value caused by close university" Lee (1998 69+) concluded. Moreover, this odd marriage can produce scarcity of technological progress by virtue of the cost-benefit scale.

If the researchers feel that the money they are receiving does not justify departure from pure science, for instance, into an application-specific project funded by a corporation, the researcher is likely to cease working on the corporate project (Lee 1998 69+). It is easy to see how this could have a cascading effect.

The researcher refused to provide innovations, the corporation lacks what it needs to compete in the marketplace or to bring the consumer what the consumer wants, and begins to cut back on staff, causing a pocket of scarcity, both of the innovation in question and of economic wherewithal on the part of the employees who were suddenly not needed. While Lee addressed the issue of technological progress and scarcity in an oblique manner, Levine confronted it head on.

Levine (1998 675) proposed that "Economic growth and environmental security in the United States require a national science technology policy that adequately supports a vibrant science and technology community." While she is speaking only about environmental aspects of the economy, her model is one that can easily be applied to the reasons for scarcity, despite technological progress, across the board. Levine notes that despite public enthusiasm for "environmentally friendly growth, the national science community does not receive consistent or adequate political support" (Levine 1998 675).

She claims that science funding fails to even keep up with inflation because of the habit of federal agencies playing favorites, or, in other words, creating pockets of abundance and pockets of scarcity. The famous 'trickle down' theory of the 1980s cannot be logically used to predict trickle down of positive economic factors if it is not also used to predict the trickle down of negative ones.

Levine also notes that the result of the government patchwork of funding is that private firms jump into the technological progress market, with even worse economic results. "Private firms focus their research efforts according to short-term, market-driven priorities, motives which often contradict long-term sustainable development and economic growth" (Levine 1998 675). Result=inequality/scarcity. Further, Levine (1998 675) notes that large academic institutions that are more likely to consider long-term concerns are put in the position of directing national innovation systems; please see above for the problems inherent in that (turf wars).

Despite all that, Levine does still believe technological progress is the answer to scarcity, at least in environmental arenas. Levine notes that "As far back as 1911, Joseph A. Schumpeter integrated innovation into economic development theory by showing a positive correlation between involvement in a commercial transaction and the generation of new products, devices or systems" (1998 675).

But in the past decade, science and technology research have been threatened, rather than supported (Levine 1998 675), making it doubly difficult to posit that technological progress can realistically overcome scarcity; technological innovation work itself suffers from scarcity caused by the vagaries of politics and corporate interests. The next problem with technology solving problems of scarcity lies in the concept of competitive advantage.

Kaounides (1999 53+) hypothesized that: National systems of innovation that possess world-class science and technology infrastructure and institutions engaged in frontier research will, first, play an increasingly important role in contributing sources of competitive advantage to domestic agglomerations of industries and firms, and, second, act as a magnet attracting inward flows of foreign direct investment and R& D.

facilities, which, together with parallel international alliances of domestic institutions, would enhance the generation of research externalities, local spillover effects, and economy-wide increasing returns for networks of interrelated firms and industries in the domestic economy, thereby reinforcing their role in competitive advantage. Kaounides (1999 53+) found, however, that there was no easy straight-line progression involved. Recent research "points to far more complex interactions than the linear view suggests ..

not only do science and technology interact in a complex two-way process, but basic research and government institutions (e.g., advanced measurement and testing facilities and technologies) can play an important role" in making the technologies available in the sectors of the economy in which they would have the most desirable effects. Kaounides (199 53+) concluded that there was an increasingly vital role for government to play in support for both fundamental and directed research, and in promoting networks of alliance between business and academia.

The key management task, Kaounides decided, involved organizing R& D. And innovation process so that it would benefit companies in a competitive fashion (1999 53+); competition by its nature breeds scarcity as one company attempts to disenfranchise its competitors in some way. Scarcity on some level follows any competitive loss, whether it is scarcity of good movie roles for losing the Oscar or scarcity of a job and food because the computer company one works for is bested in the marketplace; all scarcity is relative.

Everything to date is simply a reflection, in one pocket of the economy or another, of Clark's contentions regarding the social creation of scarcity. This hypothesis is operative, moreover, in times of great technological progress, or little. Indeed, it one wants to follow his line of reasoning to Adam Smith, it is unassailable. "Adam Smith saw wealth in terms of the material prosperity of the society as a whole.

The primary cause of poverty in Adam Smith's economics is an insufficient production of real wealth, which he defined as 'the annual produce of the land and labour of the society' " (quoted by Clark 2002 415+). As technological progress removes the produce of the land and labour from the purview of more and more citizens, it would stand the test of logic that fewer and fewer citizens would be participating in Smith's version of abundance, and would therefore experience scarcity. Smith was an idealist in many ways.

He proposed that: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged" (quoted by Clark 2002 415+).

But he was realist enough to see the "damaging effect" various forms of economic competition, not to mention hoarding, had on the public's morals, and therefore on the distribution of wealth and experience of scarcity. Clark noted that while mankind as a whole might become richer whether by technological advancement or some other means, "does not, of necessity, involve an increase in human welfare" (Clark 2002 415+).

In short, he was proposing and artificial scarcity crated by the business system "in order to maintain the rate of return on wealth and the social power that attaches to 'scarce' wealth" (Clark 2002 415+). (NOTE: Wealth is scarce because if it were not, it would be like pebbles on the beach and no one would want it, in a very simplified analogy of Keynes' thoughts on that.