I wrote a review on ‘The Second Machine Age’ by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. For the published version see here.
Here are some bullet points:
- this is a pop-science version of the authors work on the economic consequences of digitalization and roboterization of production processes;
- the authors argue that these processes lead to new productivity gains, especially if one also counts unpaid production such as the social value generated by companies like Google;
- but that they also lead to new levels of inequality and winner-take-it-all markets.
- This diagnosis part of the book, while somewhat bleak, makes for an interesting read.
- The recommendations part lags a bit behind as the authors mainly focus on the usual 101 textbook recipes for economists while at the same time they argue for radical transformations in the economy.
Polidigwerkschdaeddle 