How do Bionomics and conventional economics differ on the process of technological change?
I know this is hard for non-economists to believe, but orthodox economics essentially ignores technological change. The first rule of economic modelling is “Assume technology holds constant.” Once you make that assumption, you can make predictions; like a 1% rise in GNP will increase car sales by 1 million units and that steel production will rise by Y tons because the average car uses 1000 pounds of steel. It’s all neat and tidy input/output tables. But once you allow technological change into the model, you’ve got unpredicatble complexity. For example, even as GNP rises, changes in travel patterns like telecomuting and air travel whittle away at automobile demand. Car makers keep substituting more and more aluminum and plastic for steel. Across the economy, new technologies keep changing the relative value of alternatives. In reality, all the input/output ratios are fluid and dynamic. Precise predictions become impossible. But rather than admit that, orthodox economists choose to ign
