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The Lights In The Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology And The Economy Of The Future (2009)

by Martin Ford(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1448659817 (ISBN13: 9781448659814)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Createspace

review 1: Very important book that seems to fly under the radar. We are completely dependent on a mass market system where consumer demand is the primary economic driver. Consumer demand creates Production supply which drives labor which then drives consumer demand. All's well except accelerating technology is decoupling production and labor. What happens to our society when far fewer people are needed to produce. These are not just factory jobs but white collar jobs. Ford describes how Knowledge Workers are in fact easier to displace than ones that require physical tasks. It's a global problem that should be on top of the list but conventional wisdom says that jobs will keep coming.
review 2: Interesting read. One certainly can't accuse Ford of not thinking outs... moreide the box.I have the general feeling that his predictions of increasing workplace automation and increasing productivity underestimate the ability of the free market and advancing technology to create new jobs. That is to say, he may be underestimating the resiliency of creative destruction in the face of advancing technology. I'm no economist, and neither is the author, and I just get the sense that there is a little bit of the "blind leading the blind" going on here.The solutions the author suggests are creative, but bordering on farce. He proposes a slew of new taxes aimed at raising $trillions annually so that the government can pay full salaries to unemployed people to read books, exercise, and be environmentally friendly, in what essentially amounts to a collectivist utopian planned economy. Basically a 21st century Gosplan, but this time it's gonna work. less

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