I have been singing the good news about Moore's Law for many years now. It spurs productivity, it spreads knowledge, it increases the rate of change across the board, etc. etc.

But there is a dark side to all this that most who write on technology don't talk about. (The image is from Youngstown State University in Ohio.)

That's what I call Moore's Inverse Law of Labor.

Simply put, Moore's Law makes large productivity gains absolutely necessary. To compete in a Moore's Law world, you have to continually replace people with technology, and move folks' time into more productive tasks, or they fall behind.

This is true for individuals, for business, for government, for nations. It has very profound implications for all of us.

Let's think about some of them:

• No institution can plan based on a static model of the future. Pension schemes, long-term job relationships, they're not just filled with risk but certain to fall in a Moore's Law world.
• Education becomes the prime engine of growth -- for people, for companies, for places. If you're not learning you are, literally, dieing. Most Americans have failed to recognize this.
• The job of work-shifting doesn't so much apply to international development -- replacing Americans with Indians for instance -- as between people and computers.
• The rate of change exceeds what can be accounted for by any central planning authority. Set standards on high, implement lower down, and use the middle to bring the best from below to those above.
• Businesses and government are the same thing, and under the same pressure to replace people with CPUs.
• No job can be untouched by technology, and those who don't embrace it are doomed.
• Organizing people is a very high calling. The main advantage America has today over the world lies in the quality of its bureaucracies, its ability to manage people.
• Power comes from the economy, from production, from adaptability to the changes Moore's Law requires.
• Moore doesn't need America. America needs Moore more.