The Digital Revolution That Wasn’t

This article was written by Jeff Maddock and published online in the January 2014 edition of Harper’s Magazine. The article establishes a parallel between the earlier industrial technological developments and the latest digital revolution in terms of job growth and economic expansion. The author points out that earlier Era brought substantial innovation that also came with significant increase in jobs and better
wages. However, the digital era, even at its peak time, does not bring significant economic growth to promote large enough expansion. The invention of machinery, steam engine, the rail road, and automobile created wealth and substantial economic growth to benefit a lot of people. The computer Era has stagnant in jobs creation and long term economic increase. In the early days of the industrial revolution, people were anxious about introduction of machinery, automation in the work force.
Because laborers thought machines would have replaced men, said the author. Contrary to those thoughts, innovation created more jobs with better wages, work conditions, more benefits, which in turn brought an expansion to the middle class, added the author. To date, by all accounts, unfortunately the digital era has brought prosperity to much less number of people. Jobs eliminated by latest technological innovation have not been replaced by more better ones. Instead, it shrinks the
work force causing higher unemployment rate, displacement of workers, and struggling middle class. The information age has created some growth in the financial industry. But the author suggested the numbers are not dominant. Information age has made it easier to export jobs to cheaper market, causing a decrease in job opportunity in the US. The author finished the article by essentially comparing century old innovation with the digital era in terms of transformation in our lives. But we have yet to see comparable prosperity from the earlier era in the information age.