Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity | Winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics

Gripping and informative reading about how technology shaped humanity ad what it might bring in the future.

Power and Progress is a lengthy exposition by two experienced academic economists. They explore the relationship between new technologies, economic growth, net employment, wealth distribution, and equality. The latter half of the book explores the possibility that AI will be incapable of improving general prosperity while its development is controlled by a small number of powerful, private individuals and their companies. There are no bibliographic references within the text, so all facts, assumptions, and causal relationships presented by the authors must be accepted on trust. As with so many books in this genre, Power and Progress is repetitive and far too long. If these important messages are to be shared more widely, publishers and authors need to embrace brevity.

This is a remarkable book that is easy to read as it sets out a range of important ideas. Outstanding.

Somehow fails to nail down why some technological progress raises the standard of living for nigh on everyone, and some technological progress exacerbates inequality in society. Focuses on the often negative impact of technical progress on workers, whilst all but ignoring the positive impact on consumers. Whole thing came across as a whinge rather than a coherent positive plan of how to adapt society when technical progress renders a human skill redundant.

Fantastic

A must read book. Very enlightening.

As of earlier this year, Daron Acemoglu is the world’s greatest living authority on the subject of economic growth. But for lay people like you and me he’s also the man who explained to us over two mesmerizing, fact-crammed tomes:1. “Why Nations Fail” (answer: when they are missing one of two necessary ingredients: inclusive -as opposed to extractive- economic institutions and inclusive -as opposed to extractive- political institutions)2. The workings of “The Narrow Corridor” toward achieving inclusive institutions (answer: the power of society and the power of the state must (i) be in balance (ii) grow together and feed off of each other)He’s now changed collaborator, from Robinson to Johnson (author of *that* Atlantic article) and has tackled a subject that is as topical today as the ascent of China was back in 2012, when we were all wondering if its growth would continue or stall.This time Acemoglu has trained his acumen and, more importantly, his pen on the position and power of technology in our society.I won’t make you wait. Two defining elements of the earlier books are missing here:First, and more superficially, if you loved the breathless style of “Why Nations Fail” and “The Narrow Corridor” where every five pages you’re jumping from ancient Mesopotamia to Venice to Kamehameha’s Hawaii to Apartheid South Africa and from there back to ancient Athens, you ain’t getting that here.Those two books I would characterize as a kaleidoscope of places you’ve never been to, interspersed with the odd visit to a place you know well, described well enough and along orthodox enough lines for you to trust the authors’ interpretations of the places you don’t. Instead, Power and Progress visits only five or six periods in time that are dealt with more thoroughly.Second, and much more importantly, you can’t summarize the message of this book in one line. Power and Progress is much more a moan than it is a forensic proof of a thesis.Or rather, the thesis is only present in the Acemoglu chapters and absent in the Johnson chapters. (And yes, here you can tell them apart easily, which I could not do in the previous two books) And it’s rather technical, more of a mathematical identity than a sociological concept: if a new technology can be of service to the many then it’s a force for good, but if the new tech can be usurped by a powerful few to replace the work of the many without providing them an alternative occupation then progress will be postponed until the many can also use the new technology to pursue their own ends.Well, tell me something I don’t know…Regardless, it was a book worth reading.It starts with an amazing first chapter about a proto-Elon Musk of his time, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who applied his powers of persuasion to turn the Suez Canal into reality and one more time to leave death and destruction behind him in trying to repeat his first success in Panama.Later in the book the authors give their account of how we all became (figuratively) slaves to the cultivation of grain and also their account of how actual slaves were used to produce cotton. In contrast to these poor developments (where power was abused to take advantage of new technology) they dedicate a big part of the book to the history of the steam engine and the sociological underpinnings of the sundry contributors to the relevant technology, before moving on to today’s tech barons via the robber barons of the late nineteenth century.But it’s a blur and every time the authors stop to “take stock” of the story they just told you you’d be well-advised to skip and look for the next story.So here’s your plan. By all means buy the book, if only for the amazing tale of Ferdinand de Lesseps.But unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past few years do not expect to learn a single thing here about what’s wrong today with our society. Neither Robert Bork’s story nor the crisis of 2008 is covered here from a novel angle.So read Power and Progress for the stories you don’t know, but don’t expect to be able to discuss any new ideas with your friends that you first read here.

Just got it and have nothing to say about the text but I don’t like the format, the big letters and the design is not sexy.

Great book by leading economist on the impact of technology on labor and about the crucial importance of labor unions to assure that the returns of technology are shared with workers (and not only retained by capital owners)

It is very difficult to cover these topics in a single book, but it was perfectly done by the authors. Explaining the past and discussing the future, the content knowledge is very powerful in the right hands. If you are interested to know what is behind business and governamental decisions, this is the right book.

Good

A postmortem of the thought of power as it is unfolding, changing its contours for the common people as well as those who wish to understand it but have no means to approach it.

Il tema del libro è il progresso tecnologico e le sue conseguenze. La direzione del progresso dipende dalla visione che si ha di esso e questa visione è condizionata da chi ha il potere di imporla. Questo fa sì che i benefici del progresso tecnplogico spesso nella storia sono andati a vantaggi dei pochi che hanno condizionato la sua direzione. Questo è avvenuto in passato quando il potere era saldamente nelle mani di pochi. Solo con lo sviluppo della democrazia, il maggior potere dei cittadini è dei lavoratori i benefici della tecnologia si sono estesi a molti. Lo sviluppo del IA è delle tecnologie digitali si sta dimostrando pericoloso perché favorisce l'automazione a danno del lavoro, scelte sostenute dell'ideologia del mercato. Inoltre, le tecnologie digitali possono andare a favore della sorveglianza e delle derive autoritarie, e anche i social network hanno favorito il diffondersi di fake news piuttosto che della giusta informazione. Serve una nuova narrazione e nuove istituzioni che favoriscano il potere dei cittadini è dei lavoratori per reindirizzare le scelte tecnologiche a favore della maggioranza. La recensione completa su demo-critica-mente.blogspot.it.