[Physicist]

Technology could create $1 trillion global market

Piffle. If the technology lives up to its full potential, it will destroy almost every existing tenet of economics. Both labor and capital will become irrelevant to the creation of wealth. It will instead be a matter of energy and information.

[null and void]

We've heard that prediction before.

"New-que-lar energy will be too cheap to meter." comes to mind.

Me? I'd settle for a job in nanotech...

[Lunatic Fringe]

Both labor and capital will become irrelevant to the creation of wealth.

I believe similar comments were made about the computer in the 1950s.

[Diddley]

[7] Both labor and capital will become irrelevant to the creation of wealth. It will instead be a matter of energy and information.

An interesting concept.
Won't workers and money/equipment (capital) still be needed?
I would appreaciate any amplification
Thanks

[azcap]

Nanotech fascinates me and scares the bejesus out of me at the same time. I don't worry so much about machines run amok destroying the world as I do what kind of civilization we will have in a post-economic/post-scarcity world. When all of mankind no longer has to do a thing to perpetuate ourselves what will become of us. I kind of think most people will end up plugged into virtual worlds living in their own permanent daydreams.

[Centurion2000]

Piffle. If the technology lives up to its full potential, it will destroy almost every existing tenet of economics. Both labor and capital will become irrelevant to the creation of wealth. It will instead be a matter of energy and information.

I beg to difer here ..... real estate and labor will become MORE expensive relative to the price of products, energy, and raw materials.

The bill you get for eating the steak in the restaurant or seeing a specialist laborer of some kind will be all about the labor cost.

[Moonman62]

Piffle. If the technology lives up to its full potential, it will destroy almost every existing tenet of economics. Both labor and capital will become irrelevant to the creation of wealth. It will instead be a matter of energy and information.

Technology and other forms of productivity increases have been destroying jobs for as long as we've had an economy. Lucky for us, capitalists have a way of creating new markets that create new jobs, which is why the service sector dominates when it comes to providing jobs. That's also why we were able to defeat the Soviet Union using economics. The commies believed the service sector was purely a cost and was to be avoided. When they wanted to make it appear that their economy was growing, they would produce an extra 100,000 tractors that nobody needed.