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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.
There may have been a pause but with us all being on the cusp of so many different breakthrough technologies, like 3D printing, self-driving cars, advances in AI, and lots more exotic stuff coming to fruition in materials research we can easily have another such burst of productivity.
Don't let the pessimists get you down, greatness is always incomprehensible to them and they cannot see it coming even if beaten over the head with it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When a MBA degree became desirable than an engineering degree, Americans became more interested in imaginary wealth than creating and improving things
While companies are busy measuring smartphone sales as some proxy for how well the industry is doing (and calling the PC market dead), I see a difference between PCs as machines used to do things, and smartphones as ways to waste time. Obviously this isn't exactly true, but in general it is. This is why smartphones have replaced PCs in popularity - people would rather waste time than do work. The media is so focused on getting our "attention" rather than helping us get things done, and we're so connected to that media now, that in my opinion it's obvious why productivity is falling. People aren't really working when they're "working" anymore. They're just distracted.
Also, don't discount the importance of air conditioning in US productivity, especially in the southern US.
That said, there could be a new jump in productivity as better technologies are developed. What if we counteracted smartphones with a drug or a widget that could make you focus?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
A rising tide lifts all boats, and that is exactly what has happened. You can't tell me the average worker today isn't better off than the average worker 100 or 150 years ago. Especially when you include the value of all the semi-socialist programs that are in place and funded by payroll taxes - things like social security, unemployment taxes, or medicare. The real problem is people just don't realize how well they have it these days because they were not around back then to understand how bad things were.
The truth is, there are no rewards for working harder or smarter, except perhaps survival.
The rewards only come from making other people work harder and smarter.
That's best done via threats, empty promises and reducing the number of available jobs while increasing the number of people.
The "problem" with interconnection is that it propagates outside of just Internet and device-to-device linking.
During the last few decades it has become increasingly easier for people to not only communicate but to travel and work together (or fight), no matter where they are.
This means:
- Salaries across the world are slowly trending towards a midpoint. This will suck for more developed countries and will boost lesser developed countries.
- Productivity will likewise even out: countries where people work 6h a day will no longer be able to sustain that work style. Similarly, countries where people work 12h a day, 6-7 days a week will slowly roll down to less than that.
- Cultures will clash. They already do and it's not pretty. Some countries' culture is 500 years back: they will have to go through a deep transformation to reach present time, or they will bring down more evolved cultures - and then productivity will be the least of our worries as a species.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Breaking news: older generation deems younger generation to be shiftless and lazy.
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.
"In tonight's special, we'll examine how we have smartphones and Xbox and super-safe cars now, and how these easily make up for the fact that you'll have a vastly harder time than your parents or grandparents did making the money to pay for these things, or getting the job that could let you pay for these things, or paying for the ridiculous level of education that could let you get the job that could pay for these things, or the house you might want to own in which to put these things and maybe raise a family at some point.
Quadcopters! Netflix! And the minor annoying quibbles they totally overshadow, on tonight's EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A rising tide lifts all boats
Which is great if you can afford a boat.