Can Changing Consumer Tastes Save Resources?

Abstract

In the past, economic progress has mostly taken the form of a rise in labour productivity based on the substitution of mechanical for muscular energy and of material for human resources. The automatic forces of the market reinforced and speeded up that trend by raising the prices and so discouraging the consumption of all those sources of satisfaction that depend solely or mainly on human interaction. An example of these is the performing arts, whose prices rose and use declined with the rise in wages, except where public policies and subsidies slowed or arrested the process.