Highlights
-
2024-12-06 20:20 What do you mean by progress precisely? Well, the definition of progress that we like is exactly related to shared prosperity. There’s been many technological transformations where some people, a few people have done really well, most people have not gained, maybe some people have actually done worse. The effect of the cotton gin on the American south, for example, and the intensification of slavery would be a perfect and rather horrible example. So we’re looking for instances where most people, I don’t think we can say it’s always there been all people, but most people have a chance to live better lives because of the way technology is harnessed.
-
2024-12-06 20:21 we had a good run from the late 19th century into the mid 20th century, we’ve built this cultural perception of more technology, better lives. But if you look over the thousand years, that’s actually a bit more of the exception than the rule. And if you look at what’s happened since 1980, it’s been more of a reversion to what we had before the 1850s than a continuation of what we had from about 1852 into the 1970s.
-
2024-12-06 20:21 You know, we know that that’s the 1720s, in the 1840s, we know that small children as young as six were pushing coal carts deep underground with their heads. That was a job, right, for children. And so that’s 120, 130 years.
-
2024-12-06 20:21 And it’s hard to argue that there was a lot of shared prosperity in that period. After 1850, things go much better and wages do rise and living conditions do improve, so does public health