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A review by freschne
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson
4.0
In all, a very good and informative read, although the key ideas are not new to readers of Jeremy Rifkin's 1994 book "The End of Work", which, unfortunately, is not mentioned.
I especially liked the argument that "growth" is increasingly inadequately captured by GDP growth, and the point that the present fiscal system is too much labor-oriented. In general, the diagnosis was excellent. The solutions outlined by the authors, however, were much too short-term in my eyes. Especially since the authors stress that we are at an "inflection point" of history, focusing on quick fixes of the status quo (better education etc) is a little myopic. We need to be prepared for a largely laborless society within our lifetimes, which will require huge changes in the distribution of income, as the authors themselves acknowledge. This big transition will take a lot of time, so it must be started now. The authors were too light on outlining the long-term solutions. For example, how are governments going to finance negative income taxes for the legions on un(der)employed, and the necessary investments in science and infrastructure? I would have liked more detailed visions on the solutions for the "android experiment".
Lastly, for a book about technology, the ebook version is funny in that the final 15% consist of a (completely useless because the keywords are unlinked) index; it's also highly misleading as the main text already ends at 67% of the ebook. In general, the book makes the impression that it could have used another round of editing.
I especially liked the argument that "growth" is increasingly inadequately captured by GDP growth, and the point that the present fiscal system is too much labor-oriented. In general, the diagnosis was excellent. The solutions outlined by the authors, however, were much too short-term in my eyes. Especially since the authors stress that we are at an "inflection point" of history, focusing on quick fixes of the status quo (better education etc) is a little myopic. We need to be prepared for a largely laborless society within our lifetimes, which will require huge changes in the distribution of income, as the authors themselves acknowledge. This big transition will take a lot of time, so it must be started now. The authors were too light on outlining the long-term solutions. For example, how are governments going to finance negative income taxes for the legions on un(der)employed, and the necessary investments in science and infrastructure? I would have liked more detailed visions on the solutions for the "android experiment".
Lastly, for a book about technology, the ebook version is funny in that the final 15% consist of a (completely useless because the keywords are unlinked) index; it's also highly misleading as the main text already ends at 67% of the ebook. In general, the book makes the impression that it could have used another round of editing.