DEVELOPMENT

“(e) Adding technology isn’t really a solution to the debt problem, because it tends to make the affordability problem worse. The problem is that while adding technology seems to lead to more employment for a few elite workers, it tends to displace lower-wage workers at the same time. The spending of lower-wage workers is really needed if adequate demand for commodities is to be maintained. Additionally, the ownership of the technology-related capital goods tends to be concentrated among the elite; this further shifts wealth from the non-elite to the elite.”

I find this most central. Development is geared to displacing the lower income and making them have to travel longer distance in new, far off places. (The supply of housing in these far-off places drives out inefficient but low-impact agriculture. Then it is always misunderstood how much energy supply goes into equipping and maintaining such places.) On the contrary, housing geared to the lowest income exclusively, close to work, obviates these problems, but is forbidden by the culture and most certainly by political leaders. Development is the decisive problem.