Time Enhanced Technological Change

It struck me upon reading the intro in a paper from Elisa Giannone, " Skills-Biased Technical Change and Regional Convergence", that "time enhanced technological change" could differentiate the dynamic between (future) time arbitrage, versus today's skills arbitrage realities. A long term focus on coordinated time value in continuous (and replicable) group settings, would mean greater dispersal of knowledge use with less internal cost inflation and (consequent) inequality. However, I'm getting ahead of myself, for in her paper, Giannone highlighted the problems which today's skills arbitrage poses: not just in terms of growing levels of inequality, but the polarization of regions as well.

What is different about today's skills dependent inequality, as contrast with the wide range of skills once required by tradable sector organization? Multiple skills levels for the latter, continue to contribute to both marketplace output and growth, translating into real gains for income capacity as well. Whereas the organization of today's non tradable sector skills capacity, not only limits the potential of knowledge use in the marketplace, it demolishes the discretionary potential of small wages.

Further, the skills arbitrage of non tradable sector activity, has not only limited the marketplace reach of imminently practical time based product, this product is actually perceived as a societal burden, of use primarily to give over to automation or be fought over by competing power bases. Non tradable sector inequality is far more problematic than tradable sector inequality ever was, because the skills divisions it continues to designate, only further divides the mental capacity of populations for the long term, all the while in settings of gradually decreasing marketplace supply of time based services, in relation to population levels.

How might one think about the potential of "time enhanced technological change", for greater marketplace production of time based services? Perhaps the very term "labour", could be said to belong to externally defined concepts of a person's time value. Initially (i.e. the Industrial Revolution), in terms of whether one had the physical capacity or soundness of mind to perform basic functions in externally defined workplaces; and more recently, for the more specific and often knowledge/skill based workplace functions.

Indeed, it may be useful to completely dissociate the term of labour, with what people actually desire from mutual self employment with others, in a time arbitrage environment. After all, the employment potential of time enhanced technological change is more closely associated with the entrepreneurial offerings of experiential and useful time, than with the boss/employee dynamic or arbitrary institutional knowledge use requirements. The personal incentives for work options are also more closely related to what people have willingly provided for others all along, on their own preferential and occasionally non economic terms.