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technology has progressed enormous ly
over the past 200 years but the debates
surrounding its effects has not and we
are now living through another period of
automation and anxiety and this is
something that has featured in various
points in history back in 1929 for
example the New York Times published
this article on the fates of the lamp
lightest so since the 1500s lamp light
has had been an occupation that featured
in most neighborhoods and was an
institution alongside the local police
and the post office but with the
electrification of city lights they were
threatened and lamplighters disappeared
over a matter of just a few decades now
even the lamp lightest mostly willingly
agreed that no electrification and of
lights had its virtues but that didn't
keep them from resisting a threat to
their jobs there's been a tendency to
ridicule people that resist new
technologies and when I was an undergrad
in economic history and I was told that
the very last thing we should worry
about is machinery and technology taking
people's jobs because economic growth
was stagnant for millennia and I only
actually took off with the first machine
age with the introduction of machinery
in production that allowed us to produce
much more with fewer people that is not
to suggest that economic activity was
completely stagnant prior to then and
there was a lot of inventions before
then but there were very few machines
that actually were used and in
production
and it is indeed those machines that
allowed us to produce more with fewer
people and as a result of that people
are roughly tire of 40 times richer
today adjusted for inflation and then
they were in 1750 now you might ask how
much does it matter does it make sense
even to compare incomes in 1750 with
incomes today because the consumer
baskets that he can purchase for a
income is very different today than it
was back then
so people during the early days of the
Industrial Revolution can only look
after the lives of the wealthy in Envy
who had servants to do the most tedious
things for them today all of us here
have access to the electric servant in
terms of dishwashers washing machines
vacuum cleaners and so on that relieve
us of a lot of tedious work
not to mention antibiotics and all the
mobiles and indeed technology has have a
tremendous equalizing effect in terms of
our consumption possibilities as well
and and if that wasn't enough evidence
of progress consider the fact that only
those higher incomes in producing those
new goods and services has become much
more comfortable as well at the dawn of
the Industrial Revolution a lot of
people who work in coal mines they
didn't see daylight for weeks cave-ins
and explosions were part of everyday
working life long to see something came
as part of the work package today the
majority of us work in air-conditioned
offices I think the hardest day in
recent memory at Oxford Martin school
was when the coffee machine broke down
and I think you know you need to put
things in perspective so I think the
long-run story of mechanization is
clearly one that has benefited also
unfortunately I think it's also only
half of the story
now the Industrial Revolution is
essentially what laid the foundations
for the modern world and I think it's
interesting just to take a step back and
think about what people actually said
and thought at the time so Benjamin
Disraeli for example before he became
Prime Minister of Britain published a
novel called Coningsby in 1848 in which
one character marks that I see city's
people with machines certainly
Manchester must be the most wonderful
place of modern times the very same year
Frederick Engels published his
conditions of the working classes in
England which was written during a stay
in precisely Manchester and anals had a
very different take on the matter
he argued that machinery only serves to
downgrade people takes people's jobs and
puts downward pressure on workers wages
now we all know that he was wrong about
the future but it was actually fairly on
target about the period he observed
because even as the British economy took
off wages were stagnant and probably
even falling at the lower end of the
income distribution the future of
technological progress and economic
growth actually depends a lot on what
people believe and if people think that
they're going to benefit from this of
the short medium long term people are
likely to willingly accept an automation
but if they don't think so they're much
more likely to resist it and one of the
key points is that the reason that the
first Industrial Revolution actually
happened in Britain was that for the
first time in Britain governments
actually sided with innovators and
pioneers of industry rather than angry
workmen the craft bills which persisted
all across Europe up until the 19th
century had no interest in any machinery
being implemented that threatened their
skills and incomes and fearing social
unrest government typically sided with
the gilts
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