Listen to Robert Gordon talk about the future of growth and innovation – or the lack of it. This TedTalk, from February 2013, presents an argument that the US economy has been expanding wildly for two centuries, but is now slowing to a halt, if not a stop. Are we witnessing the end of growth? Economist Robert Gordon presents and explains factors like epidemic debt and growing inequality, which could move the US into a period of stasis we can’t innovate our way out of.
The talk begins with a comment on the immense changes in communications technologies, from the buggy traveling at 1 percent of the speed of sound to the modern airplane that travels t 80 percent of the speed of sound, 60 years later. “We lead a of of innovation to offset the current decline in innovation”, he says.
Growth maxes out in the 1930´s, and then it starts to slow down. 400 years of steady growth gets exchanged for a few decades of slowing down, now at the cusp of coming to a halt altogether. “if growth slows down….Americans in the future can´t expect to be twice as wealthy as their parents, or 25% more wealthy”, he says. 2 percent growth pr year would lead to a doubling of living standards over the course of 70 years, but we are no getting there.
- Hours of work pr person are shrinking —
- Education — we have problems all around, as costs are rising dramatically
- A problem with debt — consumers over-borrowing, as one key among many
- Inequality – the growth rate of the bottom 99 percent is much slower than the top 1 percent.
From this he poses a challenge to current innovators: What innovations and on what scale are needed before we can meaningfully talk about a future where innovation and economic grown are meaningful discussions?
From here, an interesting contrast in a TedTalk by Erik Brynjolfsson, Harvard and Yale based innovations researcher and columnist: Technology is not enough, for our understanding innovation and the redesign of economic thinking. We are not doing as well as we should: The fact is that productivity is doing ok, but it has become de-coupled from work and jobs. From here, Brynjolfsson talks about how machines now take on more jobs. Many people find themselves out of work or with raises indefinitely postponed. But is this the end of growth? No, says Erik Brynjolfsson — it’s simply the growing pains of a radically reorganized economy. We are heading to a knowledge economy, but economists measure it all wrong — Brynjolfsson seeks to outline a different way of thinking. The new economy is digital, and it is combinatory. We need to figure out what this really means, he says.