A post by Hamlet Au over at New World Notes, refers to an interesting, but off base in my opinion, article by Edward Castronova over at Terra Nova. Basically Edward Castronova ponders whether people spending more time online has the potential to be an important factor in a real world recession. The answer of course, is yes it does, but not for the reasons Edward Castronova seems to cite.
I’m not even going to attempt to get into a discussion about Keynsian economics, I’m not an economist. However, the Edward Castronova article does mention Keynsian economics, so if that’s your bag, I recommend you read the full article, I’m going to look at this from a different angle, where I feel Mr Castronova is somewhat missing the point is when he says things like:
“People who spend time online don’t have to worry about what they are wearing. Suppose that some percent of a given day can be spent in pajama’s, the rest must be spent in decent clothes. For decent clothes, you need a whole and varied wardrobe. For PJ’s, you need a few comfy ones. Now increase the amount of time that can be spent in PJ’s. The demand for decent clothes falls, if ever so slightly. The internet allows us to do all kinds of stuff in our PJ’s – so it must have an ever so slightly dampening effect on the market for fashion.” Continue reading “The Digital Revolution”