Uploaded May 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
How is technology reshaping our society, and what can we do to make sure these changes are positive for more than a minority?
Simon Johnson discusses #PowerAndProgress, a new book co-authored with Daron Acemoglu.
Find a copy & learn more: https://shapingwork.mit.edu/power-and-progress/
A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear. Progress 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.
The wealth generated by technological improvements in agriculture during the European Middle Ages was captured by the nobility and used to build grand cathedrals while peasants remained on the edge of starvation. The first hundred years of industrialization in England delivered stagnant incomes for working people. And throughout the world today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence undermine jobs and 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 may 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.
With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the vision needed to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances.
@mit @MITSloan @miteconomicsdepartment6806
How is technology reshaping our society, and what can we do to make sure these changes are positive for more than a minority?
Simon Johnson discusses #PowerAndProgress, a new book co-authored with Daron Acemoglu.
Find a copy & learn more: https://shapingwork.mit.edu/power-and-progress/
A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear. Progress 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.
The wealth generated by technological improvements in agriculture during the European Middle Ages was captured by the nobility and used to build grand cathedrals while peasants remained on the edge of starvation. The first hundred years of industrialization in England delivered stagnant incomes for working people. And throughout the world today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence undermine jobs and 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 may 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.
With their breakthrough economic theory and manifesto for a better society, Acemoglu and Johnson provide the vision needed to reshape how we innovate and who really gains from technological advances.
@mit @MITSloan @miteconomicsdepartment6806
![The Web [Axel Leijonhufvud]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l6JLXQc-Mus/mqdefault.jpg "The Web [Axel Leijonhufvud]
What is your first association when somebody talks to you about the economy?
Axel Leijonhufvud was one of the most creative and perspicacious macroeconomists of the last century. He became famous early in his life for his contention that the Keynesian Economics being taught and understood at that time was a serious misinterpretation of Keyness ideas. Instead of the emphasis on inflexible wages and prices as being central, Keynes, he argued, was focused on the failure of intertemporal coordination. Taking that challenge into consideration required a different way of looking at the economy and theorizing disequilibrium. As a committed supporter of the history of economic thought, he was singularly aware of the problems of taking a wrong path intellectually a mistake that could lead to years of misguided work. And indeed, that wrong turn, away from the fertile ground of disequilibrium macroeconomics did occur, as the profession moved away from it to what he may have seen as an academic and theoretical dead end. His latter career was devoted to finding more meaningful and generative foundations for dealing with the deeper issues of macroeconomic and monetary stability. In the last decade of his life he was a founding member of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a key part of its academic council.
In this animation, taken from his speech at the INET plenary in Berlin in 2012, he describes the process by which macroeconomic instability is generated. We invite you to see it and to explore the many other contributions of this true intellectual giant.
Read his papers and more in our archive of his work:
http://newth.ink/axel
Professor Leijonhufvud speaking at INET Berlin 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90zLGjQr6jo
Axels Masters Series interview playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmtuEaMvhDZbnT7kpLB1ilBhhbWlenPOC
Produced by Matthew Kulvicki & Nick Alpha")
