The Transformation of Material Standard Living and Productivity

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There wasn't much scientific discovery going on in the nineteenth century. The scientists were challenged by what businesss were doing, and they had to understand how it worked. It's a very high chian processas you mention, in the its the particular knowledge of time and place that only the people who are touching and deeply involved in a process can often congenerate.

Edmund Phelps of Columbia University, Nobel Laureate in economics, and author of Mass Flourishing talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in the book. Phelps argues that human flourishing requires challenges, struggles, and success and goes beyond material prosperity. He argues that in recent decades, policy has discouraged innovation and mass flourishing resulting in a slow-down in growth rates. Phelps emphasizes the non-material benefits of economic growth and the importance of small innovations over big inventions as key to that growth.