Citation
Acemoglu, Daron, and Simon Johnson. Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity. PublicAffairs, 2023. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d9tsmbsyff3xpz597lzc5/PowerandProgress_OurThousand-YearStruggleover-DaronAcemoglu-SimonJohnson.pdf?rlkey=2cntwyavjtawbpnnyutjhas3y&dl=1. Google Books Link PowerandProgress_OurThousand-YearStruggleover—DaronAcemoglu,SimonJohnson,DaronAcemoglu—2024—PublicAffairs—9781541702547—cdb44511751eeac5b853af136f79ce79—Anna’sArchive
Excerpts
| Page | Quote | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 409 | Development of antibiotics: “Remarkably, financial incentives played relatively little role in this discovery and development process.” | |
| 428 | Ref: Moscona and Sastry (2022), “Inappropriate Technology: Evidence from Global Agriculture”. SSRN | |
| 428 | Ref: Frey (2019), The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation (Princeton University Press) | |
| 430 | Ref: Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2003). “An African Success Story: Botswana”. In In Search of Prosperity: Analytical Narratives on Economic Growth, ed. Dani Rodrik (Princeton University Press) | |
| 431 | Refs: Cialdini (2006), Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (NY: Harper); Turner (1991), Social Influence (NY: Thomson/Cole) | |
| 439 | ”For evidence on how power affects behavior and others’ perceptions, see” Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson (2003), “Power, Approach, and Inhibition” Psychological Review | |
| 108 | ”Greater demand for workers leads to higher wages only when employers compete to attract labor in a well-functioning, noncoercive labor market [… otherwise] wages and obligations were often determined by what the lords could get away with.” | |
| 113 | After the Black Death, “Labor shortage swung the pendulum in favor of peasants, who could refuse their lords’ demands, ask for higher wages, refuse to pay finds, and, if necessary, walk away to other manors or into towns.” | |
| 125 | Arthur Young: “everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious” | |
| 230 | ”Ford was not motivated by altruism. He adopted these measures because he believed that higher wages would reduce turnover, limit strikes, prevent costly stoppages of the assembly line, and increase productivity.” |
Zotero Metadata
Abstract
Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson overturn conventional wisdom about how economies work—revealing the untold story of who wins and who loses the rewards of prosperity—in a work that fundamentally transforms how we look at and understand the world. Throughout history, technological change — whether it takes the form of agricultural improvements in the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution, or today’s artificial intelligence — has been viewed as a main driver of prosperity, working in the public interest. The reality, though, is that technology is shaped by what powerful people want and believe, generating riches, social respect, cultural prominence, and further political voice for those already powerful. For most of the rest of us, there is the illusion of progress. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson debunk modern techno-optimism through a dazzling, original account of how technological choices have changed the course of history. From vivid stories of how the economic surplus of the Middle Ages was appropriated by an ecclesiastical elite to build cathedrals while the peasants starved, to the making of vast fortunes from digital technologies today as millions are pushed towards poverty, we see how the path of technology is determined and who influences its trajectory. To achieve the true potential of innovation, we need to ensure technology is creating new jobs and opportunities rather than marginalizing most people, through automated work and political passivity.  We need to use the tremendous digital advances of the last half century to create useful and empowering tools, and seize back control from a small elite of hubristic, messianic tech leaders pursuing their own interests. With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for building a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the understanding and vision to reimagine and reshape the path of technology and create true shared prosperity.
Metadata
FirstAuthor:: Acemoglu, Daron > Author:: Johnson, Simon
Title:: Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity ShortTitle:: Power and Progress Year:: 2023
Citekey:: acemoglu_power_2023
itemType:: book
Publisher:: PublicAffairs
ISBN:: 978-1-5417-0255-4