Coming To An Office Near You Analysis

In Coming to an Office Near You, The Economist compares and contrasts the industrial revolution, to the forthcoming automation revolution. It argues that while some government action is necessary to spread the benefits, labor will reap most of the benefits as happened with the industrial revolution. While I agree with some of the arguments made, I would posit that the article commits a fallacy by assuming that history will repeat itself. Coming to an Office Near You, is split up into three sections. The beginning of the article draws connections to the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, liking the loss of artisan jobs to the loss of the data entry type of jobs. It discusses the various jobs that innovation has created in their place and asserts that innovation has made the world a better place the citing greater efficiency and sophistication of the economy. The second part of the article discusses the the negative effects that innovation has presently brought about namely and increate in income inequality and a decrease in labor’s portion of profits. It relates this to the industrial revolution, citing how

It cites the “off-the-shelf” code available and the explosion of digital startups. It extends the argument further by saying these firms firms will in the future employ millions of employees, replacing the ones displaced by automation. Throughout the article The Economist argues that innovation replaces the jobs it destroys, and this is one of the only lines of logic that shows how this could hold true for the automation revolution. It notes that the industry for tech companies as a whole is fairly immature and that as it grows it should employ more people, similar to how Google, a relatively mature company, employs 43,000 employs. This point is key because it counters the argument that tech startups will only result a a handful of billionaires reaping all the