Power and Progress

Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

By: Simon Johnson, Daron Acemoglu

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Two bestselling authors deliver a bold interpretation of why technology has all too often benefited elites - and how we must reshape the path of innovation to create true shared prosperity.

A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear. Progress is not automatic but depends on the choices we make about technology. New ways of organizing production and communication can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity.

Much of the wealth generated by agricultural advances during the European Middle Ages was captured by the Church and used to build grand cathedrals while the peasants starved. The first hundred years of industrialization in England delivered stagnant incomes for workers, while making a few people very rich. And throughout the world today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence increase inequality and undermine democracy through excessive automation, massive data collection, and intrusive surveillance.

It doesn't have to be this way. Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once - and can again be - brought under control. The tremendous computing advances of the last half century can become empowering and democratizing tools, but not if all major decisions remain in the hands of a few hubristic tech leaders striving to build a society that elevates their own power and prestige.

With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the understanding and the vision to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances so we can create real prosperity for all.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu (P)2023 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

If you are not already an addict of Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson's previous books, Power and Progress is guaranteed to make you one. It offers their addictive hallmarks: sparkling writing and a big question that affects our lives . . . Read, enjoy, and then choose your lifestyle! (Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL)

In this brilliant, sweeping review of technological change past and present, Acemoglu and Johnson mean to grab us by the shoulders and shake us awake before today's winner-take-all technologies impose more violence on global society and the democratic prospect. This vital book is a necessary antidote to the poisonous rhetoric of tech inevitability . . . Power and Progress is the blueprint we need for the challenges ahead (Shoshana Zuboff, author of THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM)

One powerful thread runs through this breathtaking tour of the history and future of technology, from the Neolithic agricultural revolution to the ascent of artificial intelligence: Technology is not destiny, nothing is pre-ordained . . . In this age of relentless automation and seemingly unstoppable consolidation of power and wealth, Power and Progress is an essential reminder that we can, and must, take back control (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, 2019 Nobel laureates in Economics)

Position book

The book claims that it is not technology per se that increases the welfare of society, but rather the direction it takes (willingly or forcibly) in providing, for example, new jobs to compensate the negative effect of automatization on job availability. Examples that are cited are, amongst others, the dire living conditions of British society in the aftermath of the industrial revolution or the expansion of misinformation due to the use by social-media platforms of algorithms that reinforce misconceptions. I generally prefer books that do not take position and instead present objectively and critically the different positions/opinions of others with their corresponding justifications. This is not one of them. The authors have a clear position that they defend. This said, in my view, it's not a waste of time reading the contents of the present book.

Thorough

A detailed and well researched book with eye opening content. Good presentation by the narrator