What would happen to capitalist economies if technology stopped advancing?

[avant-garde]

What would happen to capitalist economies if technology stopped advancing?

Basically, does business drive technology, or does technology drive business?

 

[Office_Shredder]

What's the limit here? Can Ford come out with new and improved cars, or does that count as an advance in car technology?

If nothing can ever be improved again, the cost to produce things would drop dramatically as it's guaranteed currently produced products would always be sellable, meaning you don't have to spend on R&D or the startup costs for manufacturing new products, and the cost of starting up the manufacturing process of current products becomes negligible as the number of products sold goes to infinity

 

[WhoWee]

It makes me think of those photos of 1950's era automobiles driving around in Cuba in the 1990's or later.

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/15/vintage-american-iron-thriving-in-cuba/

 

[Kys91]

What would happen to capitalist economies if technology stopped advancing?

Basically, does business drive technology, or does technology drive business?

Well, I think there's certain dependence between it. Without money, you can't exactly have new products, eliminating expenses is not real in this world. (Money that directly goes to prototypes from the research, the researchers getting what they need for live, even if the researchers get it "free" someone is still playing for it, starting the manufacturing process, it needs money)

But from technology, come new business models, different ways of selling and buying, so how to separate them?

It makes me think of those photos of 1950's era automobiles driving around in Cuba in the 1990's or later.

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/15/vintage-american-iron-thriving-in-cuba/

+1

 

[WhoWee]

+1

Since you brought up +1 (and this is about technology) - here's one for Cyrus.

 

[Proton Soup]

if we reach the limit, we could always just bomb ourselves back into the stone age and start over.

 

[Moonbear]

If there was no new technology, then the economy would likely depend much more on consumable items and planned obsolescence. I think there might be more incentive to build cheap junk that would fall apart in a few years and require replacing rather than relying on being able to provide new products. Afterall, old technology does still sell...you do still buy pens and paper, don't you?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

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