Fake News? Newspapers Keep Saying Things that are Not True on Automation | Beat the Press | Blogs | Publications | The Center for Economic and Policy Research
▻http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/fake-news-newspapers-keep-say-things-that-are-not-true-on-automation
Let me also add point out another aspect to this issue. Even if automation was the factor costing jobs, it would not be technology that was responsible for any increase in inequality. The ownership of technology is determined by government policy on patent and copyrights. The government can (and has) made these forms of protection longer and stronger. It could make them shorter and weaker.
Without patent and copyright protection, Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, probably would not have much more money than your average successful doctor or lawyer. It is possible to argue that these are good policies and that we have all benefited from making them stronger and longer, but to deny that the resulting upward redistribution was just technology is just flat-out dishonest.
Incredibly, I have never seen any discussion of this simple and obvious point in any major outlet. I haven’t seen in the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, heard it on NPR or the PBS Newshour. I haven’t even seen it mentioned in ostensibly liberal and progressive magazines like the New Republic and the Nation.
It is worth noting that the technology view does have the implication that upward redistribution is something that happened, as opposed to upward redistribution being something that was done through deliberate policy. The implication that the rich getting richer is just the natural state of things is convenient for the winners in this story.