A review by almartin
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson

4.0

Five stars for ideas to chew on; two stars for the prose. Definitely worth your time, but unfortunately you never forget which MIT department
produced the words that you're reading.

So, thesis:

manifestations of progress are all based at least in part on digital technologies. When combined with political and economic systems that offer people choices instead of locking them in, technological advance is an awe-inspiring engine of betterment and bounty. It is also an engine driving spread, creating larger and larger differences over time in areas that we care about—wealth, income, standards of living, and opportunities for advancement.

The world gets wealthier, innovation continues, but the spread between rich and poor grows ever-wider. I think that's what we're headed for, and I hope that more smart things get written about what to do about it. This essay remains my pick to click:

...the poor people have a good standard of living in terms of absolute magnitude, but they have little freedom. With a tight budget constraint (near the origin) obtusely and extremely scalening off in various directions of cheap stuff (sox, packaged food with lots of preservatives, canned food [can o’ corn], modular homes, satellite TV, Budweiser beer, … brand-name oreos, ATV’s and Harleys? Well I didn’t say it makes total sense), the only way to live like a richie is to buy specifically the stuff that is cheap — even if, as measured by eg, your Engel curve, that’s not what you really want...the robo-programmers are creating things for you and everyone else for cheaper than you used to get it before. However anything you want that doesn’t come out of the robo machine (like organic peaches) is going to suck up a lot of your income for something that’s just completely standard (like a fruit).

I don't have it all put together yet, but I think that when we look back at the early 2000s we'll interpret OWS not so much as a direct response to bankers and bonuses but as the first expression of growing unease about this sea change in the economy, with ever-greater returns to 'superstars' at the top and technological unemployment at the bottom.

What do we do about it? Not sure. One thing we definitely need to do a better job helping preparing kids for it; also thinking a lot about the EITC and negative income taxes. Jazzed for the new Piketty; will be turning Second Machine Age over in my head until then.