A review of the book 'Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity' written by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.
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.
Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once - and can again be - brought under control.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity' written by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the authors or publisher.
Little bit about the authors:
Daron Acemoglu is Institute Professor of Economics at MIT. He is the co-author (with James Robinson) of The Narrow Corridor and the New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail.
Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Sloan School at MIT, where he is also head of the Global Economics and Management group. He is the co-author (with Jonathan Gruber) of Jump-Starting America, and (with James Kwak) of White House Burning and the national bestseller 13 Bankers.
Let me read what is written on the back cover of the book:
QUOTE
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.
UNQUOTE
Some of the things I learnt after reading this book:
1. The word technology comes from the Greek techne (“skilled craft”) and logia (“speaking” or “telling”), implying systematic study of a technique.
2. Power is about the ability of an individual or group to achieve explicit or implicit objectives. If two people want the same loaf of bread, power determines who will get it. The objective in question need not be a material one. It will sometimes be about whose vision of the future of technology will prevail.
3. British historian and politician, Lord Acton, famously remarked in 1887,
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
4. Ever since the term industrial revolution was coined in the late nineteenth century, a wide variety of thinkers have put forward explanations for “why Britain was first.” Theories can be usefully grouped into five main buckets: geography, culture (including religion and innate entrepreneurship), natural resources, economic factors, and government policies.
5. In 1700 India had some of the most advanced ceramics, metalworking, and printed textile products in the world, all produced by highly skilled artisans who were well paid by the standards of the time. The much coveted “Damascus Steel” was from India, and its calico and muslin were greatly prized in England. In response, the English woolen goods industry lobbied successfully for import restrictions in order to keep out the high-quality Indian textiles.
6. Members of the British elite were convinced that they should remake Indian society, purportedly to civilise it, but in reality for their own ends.
7. Lord Dalhousie, governor-general of India in the early 1850s, was adamant that India needed to adopt Western institutions, administration, and technology. Railways, Lord Dalhousie argued, “will afford to India the best security which can now be devised for the continued extension of these great measures of public improvement and for the consequent increase of the prosperity and wealth in the territories committed to its charge.”
But instead of economic modernisation, railways brought British economic interests, and they intensified control over the Indian population.
8. The economic hardships and incompetence, and in the eyes of many, indifferent policy reactions, paved the way to an almost complete loss of legitimacy of established parties and the rise of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. The Nazis were no more than a fringe political movement, receiving only 2.6 percent of the national vote share in the 1928 election before the Depression. Their vote share shot up in the first election after the Depression and reached 37.3 percent in July 1932. In November 1932, the Nazis lost ground but still won 33.1 percent of the vote, and in January 1933 Adolf Hitler became chancellor.
9. President William McKinley’s campaigns in 1896 and 1900 were generously funded by businesses, organised in part by Senator Mark Hanna, who summed up the system this way: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.”
Conclusion:
I really enjoyed reading the book. It is very difficult to cover so many topics in a single book, but the authors have done a great job. If you are interested to know what is behind business and governmental decisions, this is the right book. I give the book 4.5/5.
The book is available for around Rs. 625/- on Amazon India and for around the same price on Flipkart. And it is available for $23.99 USD on Amazon USA. I have given the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
I would like to end this book review with a quote by Isaac Asimov on the problem of our current system of education:
“Today, what people call learning is forced on you. Everyone is forced to learn the same thing on the same day at the same speed in class. But everyone is different. For some, class goes too fast, for some too slow, for some in the wrong direction.”
Last but not the least, thank you for spending your valuable time listening to this book review. Really grateful. Please don't forget to subscribe to the Historylogy podcast on your favourite podcasting app and also feel free to leave a review. Also, please check historylogy.com for all previous episodes. Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you. Take care and bye!