I stand corrected.  About the cost of bicycles, at least.

When I began this blog, I intended to write about inexpensive consumer products through the lens of a disposable razor that I intended to use as long as I could.  Among other topics, I wrote about the seeming expense of a new bike.  While many consumer products (watches, for example) offer superb quality at low cost, bikes still seem expensive.  In short, while a $5 digital watch keeps time as well as a $5,000 Rolex, the $149 bike you buy at Wal-Mart stinks.

Turns out that I was looking at the wrong end of the telescope.  Bikes have gotten a lot cheaper, just not in my lifetime.

According to economic inequality superstar Thomas Piketty, bikes cost one-fortieth of what they used to (see pages 88-89 of "Capital in the 21st Century").  In the 1880s, a new bike cost the equivalent of six month's of a typical worker's salary.  Today, it costs less than a week's wages.

I still hold out hope for some breakthrough material, design or process that cuts the cost of  a good bike.  I suspect that someone will find a replacement for the spoked wheel, which has a high labor cost.  Or, perhaps, someone will find a way to manufacture a frame in one piece.

Maybe Piketty's elites bought up the patents for these kinds of innovations to prevent the proletariat from pedaling to the barricades.