Paul Krugman- The Big Meh

[n2doc]

Remember Douglas Adams’s 1979 novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”? It began with some technology snark, dismissing Earth as a planet whose life-forms “are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” But that was then, in the early stages of the information technology revolution.

Since then we’ve moved on to much more significant things, so much so that the big technology idea of 2015, so far, is a digital watch. But this one tells you to stand up if you’ve been sitting too long!

O.K., I’m snarking, too. But there is a real question here. Everyone knows that we live in an era of incredibly rapid technological change, which is changing everything. But what if what everyone knows is wrong? And I’m not being wildly contrarian here. A growing number of economists, looking at the data on productivity and incomes, are wondering if the technological revolution has been greatly overhyped — and some technologists share their concern.

We’ve been here before. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” was published during the era of the “productivity paradox,” a two-decade-long period during which technology seemed to be advancing rapidly — personal computing, cellphones, local area networks and the early stages of the Internet — yet economic growth was sluggish and incomes stagnant. Many hypotheses were advanced to explain that paradox, with the most popular probably being that inventing a technology and learning to use it effectively aren’t the same thing. Give it time, said economic historians, and computers will eventually deliver the goods (and services).

This optimism seemed vindicated when productivity growth finally took off circa 1995. Progress was back — and so was America, which seemed to be at the cutting edge of the revolution.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the techno-revolution. We did not, it turned out, get a sustained return to rapid economic progress. Instead, it was more of a one-time spurt, which sputtered out around a decade ago. Since then, we’ve been living in an era of iPhones and iPads and iDontKnows, but even if you adjust for the effects of financial crisis, growth and trends in income have reverted to the sluggishness that characterized the 1970s and 1980s.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/opinion/paul-krugman-the-big-meh.html?ref=opinion&_r=1

[Hekate]

1. "But there I go, invoking history again..."

Thanks for bringing us Krugman today, n2doc

[whereisjustice]

2. Our wages have fallen, our wealth has fallen, our work hours and expenses have increased...

No technological innovation is fixing our broken infrastructure. It isn't solving our problems with poverty and homelessness or prison crowding or climate change. It isn't bringing peace. It isn't bringing prosperity.

Of course, I'm talking about 99.9999% of the US. For the few 1000 people who own us, however, technology has yielded everything they could have imagined and more.

Companies have been recycling the same technologies over and over to milk as much profit as possible without investment. Drug companies are spending on marketing and tiny tweaks to drugs in order to extend patents and maintain monopolies. That same pattern can be found in almost every industry - we send labor to India and China not because these nations are great innovators, it is exactly the opposite. They're low wage and abusive work cultures are perfect for keeping overhead low and profits high.

And for sure, twitter is not an innovation. Neither is facebook.

I'm glad to hear someone with clout speak on this topic.

I've also noticed that we are leaning into a technocratic, authoritative political culture in the Democratic Party as well. Needless to say we won't see any improvement in the quality of our lives from this development either.

[blackspade]

3. +1000

[MrModerate]

4. I surprised that Krugman didn't go where I expected him to go . . .

Which would have been to point out that the fruits of the productivity revolution were largely stolen. And we know by whom.