Industry in the Age of Resources: A World of Scarcity?

In the previous chapter, we explored the first driver of innovation: the permanent quest for building faster, cheaper, and better in order to save time and money and create greater abundance. The twentieth century, in this regard, is likely to be remembered in the distant future as the land-mark of such progress. Building on innovations that thrived in the late nineteenth century, the tale of the last decades has been one of spectacular wealth creation, fueled by access to more affordable goods, once available to only a small minority. To a large extent, this tale has been that of a middle class that could increasingly live like the upper class, climbing the social ladder at rocket speed…