The Social Order
Economists love technological change because it translates into increased productivity. Rising productivity can then be measured, albeit imperfectly, and feeds directly into economic growth. However, while we can use standard measures to observe some forms of economic progress, other technological and scientific advances do things for humanity that the usual measures of output fail to reflect.
When a new virus attacks the human race, we get our best scientists together and fight back. It’s a horrible battle, but in the end, we win. A century ago, a flu virus killed a substantial percentage of the world’s population. Since then, immunology and virology have advanced by a quantum leap. Had Covid-19 appeared in 1900, it would have been far more devastating—the virus responsible for the 1918 Spanish flu was not identified until 1935. In 2020, science identified the virus right away, sequenced its genome within weeks, and produced vaccines within a year. Technology, more than ever, determines how we live. Yet such triumphs rarely make it to the national income accounts and do not show up in gross domestic product.