Here is an excerpt from an intervidew of Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson by Kaushik Viswanath for the MIT Sloan Management Review. To read the complete article, check out others, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Illuzstration Credit: Taylor Callery/theispot.com
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A new book reviewing 1,000 years of technological progress reveals how it benefits entrenched interests.
Daron Acemoglu: This is a critical time to be thinking about the future of technology. A lot of decisions of great import are being hampered by the fact that there is “techno-optimism” in academia, the tech world, and the policy world. Techno-optimism is the notion that impressive technological change will automatically lead to better outcomes for society, especially for workers via the labor market, even if there are some transition costs.
Our understanding of the relevant economic theory and history has led us to believe this isn’t right. Throughout history, deliberate decisions have had a bearing on who gained and lost from a particular technology, whether it brought anything approaching shared prosperity, or even whether it helped or destroyed democracy. So our purpose in writing Power and Progress was to dispel the notion that in the history of technology, everything has always worked out OK. There are similar choices and struggles over technology today as we’ve had in the past.
Throughout history, deliberate decisions have had a bearing on who gained and lost from a particular technology.
Simon Johnson: The productivity bandwagon is the notion that when technology improves, you get higher wages, more opportunity, and better health, and everybody gains from it eventually. Our key problem with that notion is the “eventually.”
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.