I WROTE THIS REVIEW without the aid of a secretary or a typist. The authors of the book I am reviewing seem ambivalent about this. Is the word processor really such a good thing? Maybe, they submit, the corporations of the 1980s should not have used “software tools” to “downsize their workforces.” After all, automating clerical tasks destroyed “well-paying jobs for noncollege workers.”
Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson are economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In , they contend that “shared prosperity” arises only when the government and advocacy groups steer digital technologies in a “more worker-friendly direction.” They want the state to “hold entrepreneurs and technology leaders accountable,” both by overseeing technological development and by asserting greater control over public discourse. Ultimately, they want the economy to operate
