Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity

POWER AND PROGRESS: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. PublicAffairs, 2024. 560 pages. Paperback; $21.99. ISBN: 9781541702547. *In this book, two highly acclaimed MIT economists, and Nobel prize winners, make the bold claim that technological progress does not automatically result in prosperity for all. This is contrary to the claims of what they call the "technology bandwagon," founded on the economic dogma arising from the rise in productivity and wages that occurred over the 20th century. Put simply, this dogma states that "when businesses become more productive they expand their output" which results in "a need for more workers" so they "get busy with hiring" and "collectively bid up wages" (p. 15). *To make its case, the book examines the relationship between technology, wages, and inequality over a thousand years with a view to determining what needs to be done to ensure that all parts of society share in the prosperity arising from innovation. From the opening chapter, it is clear that the authors are concerned about the current direction of digital technology, especially AI and its control by an elite few in Big Tech, what they term "a vision oligarchy" (p. 33) that needs to be "reigned in" (p. 34). Anyone interested in the ethics around technological development and its consequences on society, particularly recent developments in AI, will be interested in these perspectives. *Interpreting the economic and social data over a thousand years through to the present, the authors show how the economic prosperity of the post-World War II years was an outcome of a long struggle over the direction of technological progress and a balancing of power between employer and employee. Various examples are cited by the authors to justify their view that to create an economic elite involves a compelling vision and a social standing that affords opportunity to frame and set the agenda for debates on innovation, prosperity, human flourishing, and how to solve the world's big problems. The influence of the powerful becomes self-perpetuating if they have access to influence policy makers and if their ideas and arguments are persuasive and have broad appeal. *Many illuminating economic facts are employed throughout the book. Typical is that, apart from famine years or other disturbances such as war, food production remained roughly in line with population growth until the early 19th century, and that, despite the innovation of the middle ages, the quality of life of a European peasant changed little over several millennia. Productivity improvements benefited a very small elite of kings and their retinue, nobles, and the clergy. *Turning to the Industrial Revolution, the authors claim the poor did not share the wealth generated through technology innovation because of the bias in automation which favored those wealthy enough to purchase machinery and because of the lack of worker representation in setting wages. They also argue that the "aspirant" class in this period focused on accumulating wealth for themselves and did nothing to alleviate the appalling conditions in the first half of the 19th century. In making this claim, a glaring omission in the authors' analysis of the 18th and 19th century in Britain is the influence of evangelicals in the reform movement, such as the Clapham Sect, and businessmen, such as Cadbury, who conducted his business differently to most, providing homes for his workers and education for their children. This omission is surprising given that these evangelicals shaped institutions and public opinion in ways that the authors view as crucial to bringing about a change of vision in business leaders and institutions, as well as in the public. *The change in direction of technology in the second half of the 19th century plus and institutional changes up to the post-World War II period, ground the authors' conclusion that "the productivity bandwagon depends on new tasks and opportunities for workers and an institutional framework that enables them to share the productivity gains" (p. 218). A key 19th-century transition point was that the direction of technology shifted away from automation and people began to benefit more from the progress of technology. Key examples involve steam and electricity, which created new tasks and job opportunities in transport infrastructure and associated industries, such as steel and coal. Later, as electricity transformed factories by allowing distributed power rather than centralized steam power, there was a significant increase in the demand for engineers and white collar workers, pushing up wages. Contributing to this trend were institutional changes such as trade unions that gave greater bargaining power to workers, creating improved rent sharing between employers and employees. Political representation resulted in regulation with attendant improvements in conditions and public health. After World War II, there was a significant year-on-year increase in the "Total Factor Growth" measure of technological progress, and there was more inclusive economic growth with inequality declining rapidly as wages rose. *The closing chapters of the book focus on digital technology and AI, and detail how the 1,000-year struggle that finally resulted in a more inclusive prosperity began to unravel in the 1980s. Economic growth slowed and labor's share of national income has been on a protracted downward trend in most industrialized economies. The share of wealth in the richest 1% of the population increased from 10% in 1980 to 19% in 2019. Several factors that brought about these changes are reviewed, including the advent of the digital age and the automation of manual labor that it afforded, along with a change in economic doctrine, the erosion of union power, and deregulation that has favored cutting labor costs. All of this, it is argued, has led to a change of vision, often expressed as, "the social responsibility of business is to increase profits" and to generate "high returns for their shareholders" (p. 271), views now taught in most business schools. *The authors also argue that the "move fast and break things" mentality is symptomatic of a shift in the direction of digital technology and that the current AI vision of technology leaders is an illusion. This vision claims that AI will benefit humankind, yet in reality, it sidelines humans while generating huge wealth by reshaping our view of digital and AI technology away from creating new tasks and opportunities toward automating work and cutting labor costs, re-creating the old two-tier society of the previous millennia. Nevertheless, while some data is provided to justify this assertion of the authors in the use of robotics, there is much debate about the real impact of AI among white collar workers, a topic about which the authors offer no projections of their own. *Central to the book's thesis is the claim that a deterministic view of technology is a fallacy. Different choices could have been made in developing AI, away from automation and in directions more beneficial to society. However, what these directions might be are not really examined in any detail. A Christian redemptive approach to culture, while resonating with this nondeterministic view, would want to frame the argument in terms of responsible design choices involving stewardship, love for neighbor, and avoiding technological design that dumbs down humanity or leads to addiction or results in idolatry. *The final chapter outlines how Progressive movement activists, reformers, and journalists changed the views of the public, organized politically, and challenged institutions and government in America in the late 19th and early 20th century, leading to a redistribution of power and a change in direction for technological progress. A three-pronged formula is proposed as a way out of our current predicament: (1) "altering the narrative" and "changing the norms," (2) "cultivating countervailing powers," and (3) providing "policy solutions." How this would work is then sketched out using examples, such as how the environmental movement worked to redirect technologies. The authors' proposals for "Remaking Digital Technologies" were rather weak. Their suggestion that "improving productivity in workers' current jobs" (p. 394) is precisely what companies such as Microsoft would argue they are offering through their "co-pilot." I was also not convinced by the longer section on policy solutions that missed any reflection on proposed standards for responsible AI or policy proposals, such as the EU AI Act, details of which have been under discussion for the last few years. *In the complex world of social history and economics, it is often hard to prove a causal link between one factor and another, let alone when there are several variables in play. No doubt other economists and social historians will have a different take on the role of power and technological progress in shaping our world, and Christians will want to provide an interpretation through the lens of biblical truth. This book does, however, provide a helpful counterpoint to the prevailing AI vision that innovation is essential for growth and prosperity and that regulation stifles progress. *Reviewed by Jeremy Peckham, AI entrepreneur, ethicist, and former CEO, Bewdley, UK.