Well, while I was off working and not paying terribly close attention to matters non-electric, Brad DeLong struck on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as many of you know: Jane Austen, and particularly Pride & Prejudice. He even linked to The Republic of Pemberley, a must-read on my daily tromp through the Internet, to initiate the discussion.
Brad’s thread, How Rich is Fitzwilliam Darcy?, is splendid, full of the type of polymath detail that one gets from immersion in economic history. The comments are particularly amusing; my favorite one is from British Spin:
“Schumpeter reminds us that no labour saving device is as good as the attentions of one body-servant”
Does this provide the basis of a unity of labour saving utility? I propose the Jeeves. A single jeeves would remove even the need for sentient thought on the behalf of the principal.
All labour saving devices could be ranked in micro-Jeeves.
I fear that Jeeves was such a virtuoso that all other devices do pale in comparison to him, so we could have an indexing problem.
Bravo, Brad! I wish I had been able to join in the thread.