Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There

Fear of automation rendering the human worker obsolete is not new but is particularly relevant in the modern era, where robotics and other technological developments have been pushing down real wages for decades. In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors in computers would double every year, and his prediction was correct. Shipping containers have made land and sea transit vastly more efficient. Bregman notes that in this more computerized and globalized economy, the ratio of wealth flowing to labor relative to the owners of capital has declined because large and complex supply chains tend to favor a handful of large companies that have the resources to connect all the disparate parts. The result is a growth in inequality as those with power gain more power and, as they do, need fewer workers. Technological development has typically created and eliminated jobs at a comparable rate, but in recent years automation has eliminated far more jobs than it has created, and many of the jobs that remain pay low wages. Machines are developing the power to do more, better, and at increasingly faster rates. Seemingly, all that will be left are a handful of good jobs for the managers of the technocracy and an underclass of people performing the few menial tasks requiring humans.