By the late 1800s, mechanically made brick was common, but the machines hadn’t had any impact on brick prices. In 1861 one British architect commented “The high price of bricks at the present moment was an extraordinary fact...the duty had been taken off and now good stocks were much more expensive than when the duty was on.” As late as 1885, the price of machine-made bricks were reported to cost just over 17 shillings per thousand, while hand-made bricks were just over 19 shillings - not significantly different, and not much less than when the brick taxes were in effect.
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Today, brick production has been almost completely mechanized in large factories, and the industry remains low-margin and cutthroat, but brick is somehow more expensive than ever. In the US brick costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 to $600 per 1000, roughly 2 to 4 times as expensive as it was in 1930.
We generally expect industrialization and mass production to make things cheaper. We see this all the time, from nails to cars to fabric. However, it never managed to make bricks cheaper. Rather than bringing down costs, industrialization in brickmaking seems more like a red queen’s race - requiring more and more investment and innovation simply to stay in place, or to slow the rate of increase. Despite having factories that can make 500,000 bricks a day or more, the cost of using it means we’re forced to carefully husband it, putting it only on the sides of buildings most likely to be seen.
Food is a bit like that too. A population of animals, absent a predator to cull them, will populate until their food supply can't sustain them. It's part of the reason that moderate hunting of...
Rather than bringing down costs, industrialization in brickmaking seems more like a red queen’s race - requiring more and more investment and innovation simply to stay in place, or to slow the rate of increase.
Food is a bit like that too. A population of animals, absent a predator to cull them, will populate until their food supply can't sustain them. It's part of the reason that moderate hunting of wild animals is not inheriently a bad thing, provided their populations are not otherwise being destroyed via ecosystem destruction.
Does explain a lot about the continual increases in human population. We're never going to grow ourselves enough food unless we introduce an artificial predator, with widespread access to birth control being the most humane.
It seems like over historic time periods, the price of food really did drop, though? Here’s a chart for wheat. The other charts I can find don’t show it but they don’t go back earlier than the 70’s.
It seems like over historic time periods, the price of food really did drop, though? Here’s a chart for wheat. The other charts I can find don’t show it but they don’t go back earlier than the 70’s.
I was referring more to raw caloric output than price The demand for food will always match supply of food, if lagging behind a few years. So we're in a bit of a situation like the bricks where no...
The demand for food will always match supply of food, if lagging behind a few years. So we're in a bit of a situation like the bricks where no matter how much we produce, the population will consume it.
You were talking about population though. Other than in extreme poverty, I don’t think how many children women have has much to do with food? I seem to remember the demographic transition to...
You were talking about population though. Other than in extreme poverty, I don’t think how many children women have has much to do with food? I seem to remember the demographic transition to having fewer children having more to do with women’s education and fewer childhood diseases.
There are countries where population is declining, too. (Japan for example.)
If there's a fixed food supply, if women have too many children, everyone goes hungry until someone dies. That is the fundemental truth. So, unless the world population actively shrinks, progress...
If there's a fixed food supply, if women have too many children, everyone goes hungry until someone dies. That is the fundemental truth.
So, unless the world population actively shrinks, progress towards making more food is at best a stopgap. It's not like this is something we conciously do, nor is a problem per-se.
The decline of children in the developed world is likely more to do with easy access to birth control than food supply.
From the article:
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Food is a bit like that too. A population of animals, absent a predator to cull them, will populate until their food supply can't sustain them. It's part of the reason that moderate hunting of wild animals is not inheriently a bad thing, provided their populations are not otherwise being destroyed via ecosystem destruction.
Does explain a lot about the continual increases in human population. We're never going to grow ourselves enough food unless we introduce an artificial predator, with widespread access to birth control being the most humane.
It seems like over historic time periods, the price of food really did drop, though? Here’s a chart for wheat. The other charts I can find don’t show it but they don’t go back earlier than the 70’s.
I was referring more to raw caloric output than price
The demand for food will always match supply of food, if lagging behind a few years. So we're in a bit of a situation like the bricks where no matter how much we produce, the population will consume it.
You were talking about population though. Other than in extreme poverty, I don’t think how many children women have has much to do with food? I seem to remember the demographic transition to having fewer children having more to do with women’s education and fewer childhood diseases.
There are countries where population is declining, too. (Japan for example.)
If there's a fixed food supply, if women have too many children, everyone goes hungry until someone dies. That is the fundemental truth.
So, unless the world population actively shrinks, progress towards making more food is at best a stopgap. It's not like this is something we conciously do, nor is a problem per-se.
The decline of children in the developed world is likely more to do with easy access to birth control than food supply.