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Well put.

I would also argue that we need measures of human progress other than productivity per person. For one example, with each generation pay ditch diggers more to do less work, and by that standard we are woefully regressing.

Someone posted this the other day, which I'd never read before but I thought was quite an eloquent argument for the same. Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

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You're getting it all mixed up. The extra cost of hiring a single ditch digger to do the job is the forgone cost of letting a dude with a giant earth-mover handle the job.

You're implying that we're becoming less productive, that's totally untrue. The same argument has been made about the motor vehicle, cotton gin, etc.

I propose that the need for this is almost inevitable (given that humanity survives the next few decades). Human productivity per capita has been rising for the last several centuries (longer?); eventually, there will become a point where certain individuals will not be able to contribute substantially to society, despite their best efforts.

Of course, that time is not here today, or terribly soon.

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