Why Is Productivity So Weak? Three Theories
I am about two-thirds of the way through Paul Mason&#x27;s &#x27;Postcapitalism - A Guide To Our Future&#x27;.  It&#x27;s a book recommendation I got from some HN comments on a UBI story a while back.<p>The happy &#x2F; neutral &#x2F; depressing theories (more hypotheses) don&#x27;t cover all the possibilities, of course.<p>Weirdly, while the &#x27;depressing&#x27; scenario is badly described (is the placement of a computer in front of ever office worker an example of &#x27;innovation&#x27;?), the initial premise -- that productivity is &#x2F; has peaked -- may be accurate, iff we try to measure productivity today the same way we have done for the past hundred years.   And that&#x27;s kind of the problem -- we don&#x27;t currently have appropriate metrics for productivity in a market increasingly based on information, let alone where information components of products are approaching zero cost.<p>Anyway, I&#x27;ll pass-on the hive mind&#x27;s recommendation of Mason&#x27;s book - I&#x27;m yet to finish it, and even further from being convinced of the soundness of all his arguments, but it&#x27;s the most interesting book on economics  I&#x27;ve read.