Letter: In a World of Such Dizzying Change, Nothing Is Certain

In making the case against bonds, John Plender (The Long View, August 12) asserts that the world is moving from an age of plenty to an age of scarcity. He bases this on the idea that numerous trends since the end of the cold war — the expansion of global supply chains, growth in the global workforce, trade growth outstripping increases in gross domestic product, less spending on guns and butter — are now going into reverse. A fundamental point that Plender overlooks is that we are living in an age of extraordinarily rapid labour-saving technological change. That change includes artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing and driverless cars. In such an age of rapid technological progress, how sure can we be that the world economy will not soon be characterised by excess labour supply, falling wages and low inflation? How sure too can we be that we will not continue to be living in an age of plenty rather than scarcity?