6 ms·
That was the worst hook for an article that turned out to be fairly insightful I've seen in a while. The death of Steve Jobs, or the last flight of the Space s
by smithian 15y ago
That was the worst hook for an article that turned out to be fairly insightful I've seen in a while. The death of Steve Jobs, or the last flight of the Space shuttle, are significant mostly symbolically, they have little to do with any decline, real or imagined.
The premise in this article that I find worth talking about is that technological innovation has had more to do with the growing inequity in wealth distribution than globalization has. This is an interesting point, but I think it misses the mark. Technology and Globalization are both methods by which corporations increase efficiency. Efficiency combined with aggressive consolidation of corporations is what drives the wealth inequity.
- Retric 15y agoI am not convinced that technology is what changed the equation between management, workers, and investors at a large company. Sure, with globalization and automation and there is simply less demand for workers despite their increased output. But more importantly I think the ever increasing world capital grew faster than economic growth which means capital is chasing ever worse investments. Combine that with diversification and investors stopped keeping management in check which enabled them to drain the increased efficiency from technical improvements for their own gain.
- yummyfajitas 15y agoThis doesn't make sense - you can see extreme inequality even in areas with little consolidation. Consider Valley startups - the inequality there is overwhelming. To borrow Occupy Wall St language, the top 1% probably has more than [1] 100% of the wealth. [1] A simple example showing how this could be possible: 99 startups have lost $1. 1 startup has earned $100. Net wealth = $1 and the top 1% have 10,000% of the wealth.