Mason Gaffney's statement regarding the quotidian nature of much
obsolence brings to mind the distinction Arnold Harberger made
in his AEA presidential address on a Vision of the Growth Process and 
published in the AER circa 1998
on whether productivity advance is better envisioned as analagous
to yeast or mushrooms. Harberger seemed to favor the mushroom analogy 
which he also labelled real cost reductions. Offhand, what Harberger
had in mind by real cost reductions seems similar to what Mason Gaffney 
describes; however, I would want to go back and re-read Harberger's 
article not to mention Schumpeter before pushing this very far. On the 
other side of the ledger is probably the recent literature on General 
Purpose Technologies.

David Mitch