Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity – Johnson Simon (2023)

Throughout history, technological change, from medieval agricultural improvements and the Industrial Revolution to today’s artificial intelligence, is seen as a main driver of prosperity and a force serving the public interest. Yet technology is shaped by the desires and beliefs of powerful people, generating wealth, social respect, cultural prominence and greater political influence for those who already hold power, while offering most others only the illusion of progress. Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson challenge modern techno-optimism with an original account of how technological choices have shaped history and who determines their direction. They describe how the economic surplus of the Middle Ages was appropriated by an ecclesiastical elite to build cathedrals while peasants starved, and how digital technologies have created vast fortunes while pushing millions towards poverty. To fulfil the true potential of innovation, technology must create jobs and opportunities rather than marginalize people through automated work and political passivity. The authors call for useful, empowering tools instead of technologies that replace workers without improving productivity, and offer a theory and manifesto for reshaping technology and creating genuine shared prosperity.