Arguably wireless technology saved on the capital of telegraph lines.
A lot of inventions are making something new that didn't exist before. An x-ray machine give the doctors better outcomes, not less work. Modern medicine seems to take a lot more work than just handing out leaches and mercury.
A labor saving tech is one that would be useless if you had an infinite number of slaves that magically needed no food and never disobeyed.
Imagine you want to spin thread. A drop spindle is a very simple and cheap device. Modern spinning machines are quite a lot more complicated and expensive. The only reason not to use vast numbers of people with drop spindles to make thread is that you want those people to do something else. (Or possibly the quality of the thread for some fine threads).
"English patents of the time very rarely mention saving labor as a reason for the invention" that's partially because saving labor was seen as a bad thing.
An invention that saves capital is conceivable.
Arguably wireless technology saved on the capital of telegraph lines.
A lot of inventions are making something new that didn't exist before. An x-ray machine give the doctors better outcomes, not less work. Modern medicine seems to take a lot more work than just handing out leaches and mercury.
A labor saving tech is one that would be useless if you had an infinite number of slaves that magically needed no food and never disobeyed.
I cannot help myself -- I must quote further from the Samuelson article, from a part I elided for the sake of space.
"When writers list inventions, they find it easy
to list labor-saving ones and exceedingly diffi-
cult to list capital-saving ones. (Cannan is
much quoted for his brilliance in being able to
think up wireless as a capital-saving invention,
the syllable "less" apparently being a guaran-
tee that it does save capital!)"
I must disagree with the last sentence. Infinite or not, they could all be employed, and doing more with less is still worthwhile.
Imagine you want to spin thread. A drop spindle is a very simple and cheap device. Modern spinning machines are quite a lot more complicated and expensive. The only reason not to use vast numbers of people with drop spindles to make thread is that you want those people to do something else. (Or possibly the quality of the thread for some fine threads).
"English patents of the time very rarely mention saving labor as a reason for the invention" that's partially because saving labor was seen as a bad thing.