Charting path of progress
NON-FICTION
Near the end of his remarkably readable new book, “Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy,” British journalist Tim Harford makes a bracing observation. Not only has global life expectancy spiked in recent decades, the number of people living in extreme poverty has been slashed substantially from 95 per cent two centuries ago to just 10 per cent today. Credit for this extraordinary progress Harford concludes, “Ultimately rests with the invention of new ideas like the ones described in this book.” After reading about those who inspired everything from barbed wire to the Billy bookcase, the iPhone and, even, the plow, I am inclined to agree.
But if Harford generally believes mankind’s relentless inventiveness ultimately makes most of us happier, healthier and richer, he’s in no way benighted about the transition costs that new technologies sometimes inflict. As he rightly notes, the Luddites who raged against the first Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century were not woebegone, unskilled villagers. “They were worried about being replaced by cheaper, less skilled workers whom the machines would empower.”
That same dynamic is in play today among those fighting the forces of globalization. As Harford writes, “It is hardly fanciful to see echoes of Ned Ludd in the electoral surprises of 2016. The technologies that enabled globalization have lifted millions out of poverty in China ... but left whole communities in the post-industrial regions of western countries struggling to find new sources of stable, well-paid employment.”
Indeed, among the recent “inventions” that Harford writes about most cogently — the shipping container, the bar code, the cold chain, the diesel engine — are the very backbone of the globalization presently transforming the world. Together, they’ve tilted the dynamics of the global economy to favour big business, giving multinationals “the ability to locate key functions wherever they wish.”
Like Malcolm Gladwell, Harford has a talent for seeing the unintended consequences of unconnected inventions. “The true potential of some of them only become clear when they combine with others.” Mix the elevator with air-conditioning, add reinforced concrete and you have towering glass skyscrapers in unlikely places. Think Dubai or Houston, unimaginable metropolises mere decades ago.
One of the most potentially perilous new inventions for 21st century humanity is the robot. As Harford observes, ominously, robots are breeding like rabbits: “Their birth rate is doubling every five years,” he writes. This robotic baby boom is spawning, Harford argues, a “disturbing trend.” In the past, new technologies resulted in better jobs and higher wages — not, seemingly, now.
“Robot’s brains are improving faster than their bodies ... they can land airplanes and trade shares on Wall Street but they still can’t clean toilets.” Are those the only jobs left for humans? That is just one of the many provocative questions raised by this very clever book.