Even as economic development was just taking off, some economists were already pessimistic. Coal, wrote William Stanley Jevons in 1865, is "the mainspring of modern-day product civilisation". Yet it was limited and would quickly go out. Although more might be discovered by digging deeper, it would be significantly costly to extract and these higher expenses would decrease the competitiveness of Britain's manufacturers. After all, in other countries the black fuel was still in sight of daytime. Efficiency gains-using less coal to produce the exact same amount of stuff-would not save the country. Indeed, cleverer use of minimal resources would simply provide an incentive to burn a lot more coal, which would, paradoxically, cause an even faster use of British reserves. There was no escape, the Victorian financial expert thought. Coal would be exhausted and the country was most likely to "contract to her former littleness".


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This short article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the heading "Rocked by DeepSeek"


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