Energy, Einstein and the Great Depression

Zusatztext

This book examines the macroeconomic consequences of rapid process innovation during the 1920s and early 1930s through Albert Einsteins writings on technological unemployment and purchasing power. It identifies a concrete, economywide source of technical progress compatible with physical laws: the transition to electric unit drive and the rise of largescale, interconnected utilities, which increased machine speeds and effective rated capacity across U.S. industry. The author provides a structured framework that links physical principles to macroeconomic outcomes, an empirically grounded narrative on electrification and unit drive, and a concise reassessment of technological unemployment as a macrostructural issue rather than a firmlevel anomaly. The study builds on a kineticsbased account of wealthcreating material processes and models production using classical mechanics, thermodynamics, and process engineering to show how acceleration raised measured productivity while firms faced aggregatedemand constraints. It documents 1920s evidence on machine speed and acceleration, integrates these mechanisms into a macroeconomic model with acceleration, and revisits the 1930s policy debate on hours, wages, and institutional design. The analysis distinguishes Einsteins diagnosis regarding technologydriven labor displacement from his broader reflections on capitalism versus socialism, positioning both within the economic and intellectual history of the period. The book closes by outlining structural impediments to incomizing potential output, drawing lessons from the post1939 recovery, and clarifying where Einsteins policy instincts align with the historical record.

Autorenportrait

Bernard C. Beaudreau is Professor in the Department of Economics at Université Laval in Québec, Canada. He is the author of The Economics of Speed (2019) and Energy Rents and Income Distribution (2025).

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