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After 150 Years, the American Productivity Miracle Is 'Over' (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article on Quartz: Economist Robert Gordon has spent his career studying what makes the US labor force one of the world's most productive. And he has some bad news. American workers still produce some of most economic activity per hour of any economy in the world. But the near-miraculous productivity growth that essentially transformed the US into one of the world's most affluent societies is permanently in the country's rearview mirror. In his new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the Northwestern University professor lays out the case that the productivity miracle underlying the American way of life was largely a one-time deal. It was driven by a flurry of technologies -- electric lights, telephones, automobiles, indoor plumbing -- that fundamentally transformed millions of American lives within a matter of decades. By comparison, Gordon argues, today's technological advancements -- Uber, Facebook, Amazon.com -- will touch the productivity of the American economy lightly -- if at all. And a combination of demographic factors, such as the aging of the US population, and sociological problems such as growing inequality and educational performance that's worsened in comparison to many other rich nations, will stymie economic growth for the foreseeable future.For those not following Gordon's work, he has been expressing these views for quite some time now. Here's
his TED talk from 2013 It shouldn't come as a surprise that many strongly disagree with Gordon's views. Kevin Kelly wrote in 2013: I think Robert Gordon is wrong about his conclusion: According to Gordon growth has stalled in the internet age. This question was first asked by Robert Solow in 1987 and Gordon's answer is that there are 6 'headwinds' six negative, or contrary forces which deduct growth from the growth due to technology in the US (Gordon reiterates he is only speaking of the US). The six 'headwinds' slowing down growth are the aging of the US population, stagnant levels of education, rising inequality, outsourcing and globalization, environmental constraints, and household and government debt. I agree with Gordon about these headwinds, particularly the first one, which he also sees as the most important. Where Gordon is wrong is his misunderstanding and underestimating of the power of technological growth before it meets these headwinds. First, as mentioned above, he underestimates the value of the innovations that the internet has brought us. They seem trivial compared to running water and electric lights, but in fact, as billions around the world show us, they are just as valuable. [...] So the 3rd Industrial Revolution is not really computers and the internet, it is the networking of everything. And in that regime we are just at the beginning of the beginning. We have only begun to connect everything to everything and to make little network minds everywhere. It may take another 80 years for the full effect of this revolution to be revealed. In the year 2095 when economic grad students are asked to review this paper of Robert Gordon and write about why he was wrong back in 2012, they will say things like "Gordon missed the impact from the real inventions of this revolution: big data, ubiquitous mobile, quantified self, cheap AI, and personal work robots. All of these were far more consequential than stand alone computation, and yet all of them were embryonic and visible when he wrote his paper. He was looking backwards instead of forward." You might also find Freakonomics' Stephen J. Dubner views on this interesting.
Uber, Facebook, Amazon aren't technological advancements. Christ, people are stupid.
I can tell you exactly what happened. People kept being told if they worked harder they'd be rewarded. So they worked harder and harder.
Now, the loudest voices from the conservatives (the group telling everyone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work harder) are saying "we never claimed there was a guarantee of a reward" and "shut your whiny entitled mouth" when the highest-producing people in recorded history ask for their reward.
So now the productivity gravy train has come to a screeching halt. Now that the rug of empty promises has been yanked out from under them, the people are showing no interest in working harder for nothing.
It's really that simple. A strong economy doesn't get votes. Americans now want to be entertained. There's no difference between trump supports and sanders supporters, but neither of them are advertised anything that will actually "make America great again." Instead, we've decided to embrace European smug mediocrity, and it shows. 40 years of lost wars because we had no desire to actually win. Stagnating economies, stagnating birth rates, stagnating education, blaming "inequality" because all basic needs are met, plus cell phones.
"TED Talks" ran their course some time ago.
#DeleteChrome
When a MBA degree became desirable than an engineering degree, Americans became more interested in imaginary wealth than creating and improving things
AI is "just algorithms". Your brain is "just algorithms".
There's a classic phenomena whereby as soon as a problem considered to require AI is solved, it is defined away as "not really AI". This happened with Chess, with Go, with automated vehicles, with handwriting recognition, with facial recognition... every one was claimed to be the domain of "real intelligence", right up until computers could do them as well as humans.
Breaking news: older generation deems younger generation to be shiftless and lazy.
The real problem is people just don't realize how well they have it these days
That is incredibly true - a big part of this is that the media which should be researching and pointing this out, is instead over-dramatizing every small problem encountered to a degree that over time, things LOOK worse and worse even as they get better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He does mention wage disparity, but that is due to Government activity, not the Market.
This why anarchy, a total absence of government activity, always results in everyone having the same wage.
Wait, what?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
We could have continued increasing productivity, at least into the foreseeable future.
I remember a couple of decades ago when telecommuting became possible (roughly 1990), and the IRS stepped in with rules that made it less inviting as an option. Among other things, you couldn't deduct the expenses of your home office, and you could no longer be a consultant (1099), you still had to be a regular employee (W-2). Unless, of course, you were a doctor, lawyer, or architect - those three professions were excepted from the rule.
A little later, someone pointed out that GE pays no taxes (among many other businesses), leading to the conclusion that it's nigh impossible to start a business that makes a competing product.
Microsoft did its "embrace, extend, extinguish" thing to a bunch of other companies. Microsoft would "consider purchasing" your software business, sign an NDA and send in some engineers to check out the internals and otherwise determine the fitness of the purchase, choose not to purchase, then come out with a competing product 6 months later.
This happened so many times it became a meme.
(Let's not forget that Microsoft illegally forced itself on many computers. Whole companies sprang up to deal with viruses and other security exploits, while a viable alternative floundered. The first person to purchase a computer and return the Windows software got sued by Microsoft, and had to justify his actions.)
We gave the telecom companies $200 billion to bring everyone up to broadband. They took the money and did nothing - much of the country can't get internet access, Comcast can be the most hated company in America, and mobile phone service is spotty, the quality is choppy, and the communications insecure.
We give away our productivity and resources to other countries for little or no gain, we've been neglecting our roads and bridges, our electric service is outdated and increasingly unreliable, our health care is third-world-class. Our education is top-heavy with administration and mindless rules, and the cost of extended education burdens the student for the rest of their life.
(It's really hard to start a new business, make an innovative invention or do scientific research, when you're burdened with education expenses for the rest of your life, have to hold down a low-paying job just to survive because the high-paying one was outsourced to a H1B, can't get good internet service, and are forced to use Windows compatible software, and have to purchase health insurance at $5,000 per year per family member.)
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This is in stark contrast with, for example, America of the 1920s. Reading newspaper articles of the times shows that the country was hopping with ideas. Just about everyone on the street in NYC had ideas on how to start a business, invent a new machine, or otherwise make their fortune in America.
Immigration was easy, just show up and get registered. Immigration was a self-selecting evolutionary sieve for people who were smart and could get along with other groups. You had to leave your family, community and support system behind, and learn a new language, culture, and laws. But if you could do it, you could make enough money to have the rest of your family come over to join you.
(Nowadays it takes 10 years and $30,000 for a Russian (to use an example) to emigrate to the US... if you win the immigration lottery.)
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My point for all this is that we *could* still be having increases in productivity. If we just eased up on all the arbitrary unfairness and burden we place on the people, The electronics revolution isn't quite over yet, the internet revolution is about half over, there's a ton of room for innovation in medical sciences, and the bio revolution is just getting started. (And the start of the AI revolution might be very cl
is more and more likely to be made of silicon and steel. Automation is rendering the productive capacity of individual human beings less and less relevant. With production efficiencies at historic highs and still increasing rapidly, we should ALL have a great standard of living and a great quality of life - lots of time for creative pursuits, and friends and family, without working our fingers to the bone. But NO - workweeks are getting longer, more people have multiple jobs, and average incomes, (except for the elites), are dropping. Why do you think that is?
Fuck the "headwinds" - the clear and present danger to a healthy, happy future for most of us is extreme-and-still-growing wealth concentration. We need to tackle the truly Herculean task of re-engineering our social institutions, our cultural and historical and religious biases, our mass propag.., er, media infrastructure, and our fundamental outlook on social hierarchies. All the pearls of wisdom from all the pundits in the world are just more circuses - distractions from the job of building sane and fair societies for ourselves and our children.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
"de-regulation?"
Economically significant regulatory rules are those that, among other things, "Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local or tribal governments or communities..." (Executive Order 12866)
Clinton issued a total of 361 economically significant rules and Bush issued 358. As of the end of January 2016, Obama had 393 with another 47 on the drawing board (Obama's Midnight).
Obama has been issuing 55 economically significant regulations per year of his administration. Clinton's and Bush's record aren't much better. Over-regulation is a more likely culprit or reduced productivity.
On your other points, I can't recall how unions have contributed to productivity nor how greed necessarily decreases productivity.
Yes!
He didn't trigger the Great Recession. Financial deregulation is the major cause. We can see this because countries who kept their regulations in place didn't have mortgage crashes.
Although bubbles in general are perhaps inevitable in capitalism, being they've been happening for 400-odd years and nobody has figured out how to stop them. We may learn to prevent a given TYPE of bubble, but we invent new types.
Table-ized A.I.
The millennials at the company i work for seem to be, on average, hardworking and productive members of the team. The people who are a little older and have been with the company for five or ten years may still have a leg up on them, but that's because of experience which is obviously something that only comes with time.
Perhaps the hiring practices at your company need improvement? Or maybe you need to adapt more? What does "can't function without their cell phones" mean exactly anyways?
"the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain."
- Plato, The Republic, 380 BC
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Where did I say they needed to work harder and write better than previous generations? I said to work hard, not hardER.
I guess you can add reading comprehension to the list, so they actually understand the communications people send. Also the ability to let perceived outrage diminish as it's all too easy to take offense where none is meant. That's just a super valuable life skill all by itself.
Last word for me, I've said what was needed:
but the world accepts this now
And that... is why you fail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The notion that wage disparity is the direct result of government activity and not the market is absurd as it flies in the face of reason.
The same line of reasoning could be applied to criminal justice. Perhaps if we got rid of the meddling government, we could allow a heretofore unknown or suppressed method of human social behavior to actually do a better job of promoting harmony between individuals in society. After all, look at failed states all over the world. The lack of central government brings with it both economic equality and civil tranquility.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Those regulations you hate so much wouldn't be needed if the shitheel companies hadn't fucked over the environment in countless ways already.
Eat the rich.