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I disagree with this: "The previous one, the industrial revolution, created lots of jobs" That industrial revolution caused massive unemployment in India, in

I disagree with this: "The previous one, the industrial revolution, created lots of jobs" That industrial revolution caused massive unemployment in India, in the Ottoman empire, in China... almost everywhere that had once been a famous textile center. The idea that the industrial revolution did not cause unemployment is an illusion that is caused by looking at only one nation state. But Britain was the winner of the early industrial revolution, and it was able to export its unemployment. And because of this, a breathtaking gap opened up between wages in the West and wages everywhere else. The so-called Third World was summoned into existence. You can get some sense of this by reading Fernand Braudel's work, "The Perspective of the World" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520081161/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687742&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0520081145&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1SNDA9Y3ZZY1RSP7SSE3 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520081161/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_d... The software revolution will be similar with some nations winning and many others losing.

maw 12y ago
My advice: if you start learning about history don't stop.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who can remember the past are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it.
wwweston 12y ago
It's not so much that the industrial revolution net created jobs -- like you, I'm not sure it did (even domestically). It's that the industrial revolution not only created jobs, it created the modern labor market. Before it happened you had a much more distributed economy with many much smaller centers of production (many at the household level or close) in agriculture, trades, and craft manufacturing. Afterwards in any domestic industry where economy of scale was a competitive advantage, you had a small number of much larger centralized producers. Almost certainly with many fewer jobs in actual production (consolidation corresponding to efficiencies of scale). If there was any net gain over time since it would have been in new products being made and some new support positions needed. It is not clear to me there was ever a trend to a net gain over timescales longer than a two decades or so. So by and large it moved us to an economy with a profusion of increasingly competitively manufactured products to buy, and selling labor itself is the de facto form of subsistence rather than direct production. I think you're correct that there's always been some externalization of unemployment and a lot of the visibility depended on industry specifics. This isn't new. But what is new is that software gives us essentially a higher order of automation that means (a) it sure looks like we're automating out old jobs even faster than we're creating new ones and (b) with more unemployment we get fewer places to externalize it. :/
- jameshart 12y ago
  I'm not sure that's fair. Laboring on construction projects, joining armies, digging minerals out of holes, seasonal work on farms, serving on ships, and so on have been ways for people to earn a living for millennia, selling their labor, not their produce. Having the capital to ply a trade or craft - money to buy raw materials, and tools to add value to them - would have been beyond the reach of most people for a lot of history. There's always been a labor market. I guess what you mean is that the industrial revolution massively increased the amount of capital you needed to be able to produce goods competitively. Buying a set of tools and some raw materials to make things by hand stopped being a viable route out of the labor market into 'entrepreneurship' when mass machine-produced goods could be supplied more cheaply. Your option was to sell your labor to someone who owned some big machines, much like your ancestors sold theirs to people who owned a patch of fertile land, or a big pile of wood they wanted making into a ship. So in a sense it created the modern labor market in that it locked a lot more people into it, and obviously diversified the kinds of jobs that existed. On the other hand, it was, as you say, a massive productivity multiplier which meant we were able to create more and more wonderful and complex goods for, in real terms, less and less cost, to the point where nowadays by exchanging your labor for cash, you can soon have enough money to afford a box of electronics that fits in your pocket and allows you to access all the world's information.
logicchains 12y ago
>And because of this, a breathtaking gap opened up between wages in the West and wages everywhere else. This was because of the West getting richer, not everyone else getting poorer. Had the 'third world' countries had the right economic structures in place they too would have gotten richer like the West, much as East Asia has caught up to the West's economic development since economic and social reforms after WW2.
- intended 12y ago
  This is factually incorrect, the extensive documentation of the era makes it clear that the east India company and British rule made it a point to destroy native industry, vaccum raw material, on top of introducing laws and acts which penalized you for being a particular race. All of those economic structures were destroyed and perverted by the conquerors.
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    Wrong. Neither China nor Russia were ever colonized yet even today they lack behind the west.
    - yardie 12y ago
      Did you sleep through the entire 20th century? The one where the US was in a spending match with Russia. China collapsed under the weight of corruption. USSR collapsed under the weight of corruption. Depending on who you ask, the US is collapsing under the weight of {corruption|bureaucracy|congress}.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    The fact that the East India company was a bunch of jerks doesn't change the fact that most of the world became richer, just at a slower rate. The results of a quick google search: http://www.krusekronicle.com/kruse_kronicle/2008/03/charting-histor.html#.VOLiX3WUdhE http://www.krusekronicle.com/kruse_kronicle/2008/03/charting... https://wanhasni.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/prosperity-of-nations-the-case-of-south-east-asia/ https://wanhasni.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/prosperity-of-nati...
sparaker 12y ago
Every revolution has its downsides. But i think this revolution might just give us a break through from boring tasks and create opportunities for creative exploration one that we currently have in very small quantity.
api 12y ago
I'm fairly convinced that eventually there will be two and only two choices: universal income and a shortened work week, or such extreme wealth divisions that stability demands a totalitarian police state resembling the worst sort of comic book cyberpunk dystopia. Age of abundance or feudal hellhole. Your pick. There simply will not be enough economically viable work to sustain any system that demands labor to maintain cash flows. Automation will be too efficient, programmable, adaptable. ... I suppose there is a third option: an anti-technology crusade that bans automation to restore employment. But a make-work economy sucks, and is not likely to succeed in the long term.
- socceroos 12y ago
  Considering that it is natural for humans to lust after power I can tell you what I think is the most likely outcome. I think we're already seeing it form today and it's infancy doesn't detract from it's long-term danger.
  - TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
    Not sure why you are being downvoted, I think that you are absolutely right.
- tomphoolery 12y ago
  > Age of abundance or feudal hellhole. Why not both? We certainly have all kinds of societies on earth today. What makes you think we won't have areas that are highly progressive but also areas that are extremely sadistic in the treatment of their people?
  - ajuc 12y ago
    An intersting thought experiment is to compare their economic output. If feudal hellhole is more efficient eventually only hellholes will remain.
    - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
sdrothrock 12y ago
> And because of this, a breathtaking gap opened up between wages in the West and wages everywhere else. The so-called Third World was summoned into existence. Just picking a nit, but the Third World came into existence during the Cold War, long after the industrial revolution. Third world countries are countries that were non-aligned or neutral during the Cold War. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Third_World http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Third_World
- rkrzr 12y ago
  I like how Sweden is a third-world country according to that definition. But seriously, I don't think that's how people use this term any more. It's just a synonym for developing country by now. I also like this definition from Urban Dictionary: "Any country that owes rolls of money to the IMF and the World Bank."
  - sdrothrock 12y ago
    Yeah. I usually don't pick this particular nit in common speech, but when you talk historically, it sounds really weird to say that the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the Third World.

maw 12y ago

My advice: if you start learning about history don't stop.

yellowapple 12y ago
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who can remember the past are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it.

wwweston 12y ago

It's not so much that the industrial revolution net created jobs -- like you, I'm not sure it did (even domestically). It's that the industrial revolution not only created jobs, it created the modern labor market. Before it happened you had a much more distributed economy with many much smaller centers of production (many at the household level or close) in agriculture, trades, and craft manufacturing. Afterwards in any domestic industry where economy of scale was a competitive advantage, you had a small number of much larger centralized producers. Almost certainly with many fewer jobs in actual production (consolidation corresponding to efficiencies of scale). If there was any net gain over time since it would have been in new products being made and some new support positions needed. It is not clear to me there was ever a trend to a net gain over timescales longer than a two decades or so. So by and large it moved us to an economy with a profusion of increasingly competitively manufactured products to buy, and selling labor itself is the de facto form of subsistence rather than direct production. I think you're correct that there's always been some externalization of unemployment and a lot of the visibility depended on industry specifics. This isn't new. But what is new is that software gives us essentially a higher order of automation that means (a) it sure looks like we're automating out old jobs even faster than we're creating new ones and (b) with more unemployment we get fewer places to externalize it. :/

jameshart 12y ago
I'm not sure that's fair. Laboring on construction projects, joining armies, digging minerals out of holes, seasonal work on farms, serving on ships, and so on have been ways for people to earn a living for millennia, selling their labor, not their produce. Having the capital to ply a trade or craft - money to buy raw materials, and tools to add value to them - would have been beyond the reach of most people for a lot of history. There's always been a labor market. I guess what you mean is that the industrial revolution massively increased the amount of capital you needed to be able to produce goods competitively. Buying a set of tools and some raw materials to make things by hand stopped being a viable route out of the labor market into 'entrepreneurship' when mass machine-produced goods could be supplied more cheaply. Your option was to sell your labor to someone who owned some big machines, much like your ancestors sold theirs to people who owned a patch of fertile land, or a big pile of wood they wanted making into a ship. So in a sense it created the modern labor market in that it locked a lot more people into it, and obviously diversified the kinds of jobs that existed. On the other hand, it was, as you say, a massive productivity multiplier which meant we were able to create more and more wonderful and complex goods for, in real terms, less and less cost, to the point where nowadays by exchanging your labor for cash, you can soon have enough money to afford a box of electronics that fits in your pocket and allows you to access all the world's information.

logicchains 12y ago

>And because of this, a breathtaking gap opened up between wages in the West and wages everywhere else. This was because of the West getting richer, not everyone else getting poorer. Had the 'third world' countries had the right economic structures in place they too would have gotten richer like the West, much as East Asia has caught up to the West's economic development since economic and social reforms after WW2.

intended 12y ago
This is factually incorrect, the extensive documentation of the era makes it clear that the east India company and British rule made it a point to destroy native industry, vaccum raw material, on top of introducing laws and acts which penalized you for being a particular race. All of those economic structures were destroyed and perverted by the conquerors.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  Wrong. Neither China nor Russia were ever colonized yet even today they lack behind the west.
  - yardie 12y ago
    Did you sleep through the entire 20th century? The one where the US was in a spending match with Russia. China collapsed under the weight of corruption. USSR collapsed under the weight of corruption. Depending on who you ask, the US is collapsing under the weight of {corruption|bureaucracy|congress}.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  The fact that the East India company was a bunch of jerks doesn't change the fact that most of the world became richer, just at a slower rate. The results of a quick google search: http://www.krusekronicle.com/kruse_kronicle/2008/03/charting-histor.html#.VOLiX3WUdhE http://www.krusekronicle.com/kruse_kronicle/2008/03/charting... https://wanhasni.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/prosperity-of-nations-the-case-of-south-east-asia/ https://wanhasni.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/prosperity-of-nati...

sparaker 12y ago

Every revolution has its downsides. But i think this revolution might just give us a break through from boring tasks and create opportunities for creative exploration one that we currently have in very small quantity.

api 12y ago

I'm fairly convinced that eventually there will be two and only two choices: universal income and a shortened work week, or such extreme wealth divisions that stability demands a totalitarian police state resembling the worst sort of comic book cyberpunk dystopia. Age of abundance or feudal hellhole. Your pick. There simply will not be enough economically viable work to sustain any system that demands labor to maintain cash flows. Automation will be too efficient, programmable, adaptable. ... I suppose there is a third option: an anti-technology crusade that bans automation to restore employment. But a make-work economy sucks, and is not likely to succeed in the long term.

socceroos 12y ago
Considering that it is natural for humans to lust after power I can tell you what I think is the most likely outcome. I think we're already seeing it form today and it's infancy doesn't detract from it's long-term danger.
- TsiCClawOfLight 12y ago
  Not sure why you are being downvoted, I think that you are absolutely right.
tomphoolery 12y ago
> Age of abundance or feudal hellhole. Why not both? We certainly have all kinds of societies on earth today. What makes you think we won't have areas that are highly progressive but also areas that are extremely sadistic in the treatment of their people?
- ajuc 12y ago
  An intersting thought experiment is to compare their economic output. If feudal hellhole is more efficient eventually only hellholes will remain.
  - tonyedgecombe 12y ago

sdrothrock 12y ago

> And because of this, a breathtaking gap opened up between wages in the West and wages everywhere else. The so-called Third World was summoned into existence. Just picking a nit, but the Third World came into existence during the Cold War, long after the industrial revolution. Third world countries are countries that were non-aligned or neutral during the Cold War. http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Third_World http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Third_World

rkrzr 12y ago
I like how Sweden is a third-world country according to that definition. But seriously, I don't think that's how people use this term any more. It's just a synonym for developing country by now. I also like this definition from Urban Dictionary: "Any country that owes rolls of money to the IMF and the World Bank."
- sdrothrock 12y ago
  Yeah. I usually don't pick this particular nit in common speech, but when you talk historically, it sounds really weird to say that the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the Third World.