Abstract
A major theme being considered by contemporary economic sociology is the relationship between labour and technology. Central to this discussion is the question of the role of technology in shaping economic history. Carl Benedikt Frey’s book presents one of the most nuanced and subtle contributions to the contemporary discussion of this problem. Meticulously researched and sweeping in scope, this book presents a detailed history of the first and second Industrial Revolutions, and the first computer revolution, in an effort to better understand economic polarisation and political instability in the context of contemporary disruptive technologies.
Key to Frey’s conceptualisation of the relationship between technology and labour is the distinction between labour replacing and labour enabling technologies. This framework distinguishes between labour saving technologies that augment the demand for labour by creating new tasks for workers, and labour saving technologies that reduce the demand for labour as they replace more tasks than they create. A central premise of this book is that this distinction can help predict the likelihood of popular rejection or acceptance of technological change. Frey maintains that the first Industrial Revolution, for example, was met with fierce opposition in the United Kingdom in the form of the Luddite rebellions and similar uprisings because craftsmen understood that the technologies displacing their industries were of the replacing variety. Despite these technologies having beneficial results for labour in the long term, the extreme disruption caused in the short and medium term triggered violent resistance. By contrast, Frey writes, the second Industrial Revolution was characterised by enabling technologies, such as electricity and the internal combustion engine, which augmented the demand for labour and improved the living standards of workers in the more immediate term. These technologies were met with the tacit or express support of workers and their organisations.
This book argues that contemporary technological change has thus far been of the replacing kind – robotics, big data, artificial intelligence and others – and is consequently contributing to economic polarisation and political disruption. Frey concedes that labour resistance to replacing technologies is rational but maintains that, like in the first Industrial Revolution, the productivity and wage benefits will eventually flow to labour. The author refers to the intervening period as ‘Engels’ Pause’, suggesting that the period in which Friedrich Engels observed that industrialists were accumulating immense wealth while immiserating the emerging working class was not a long-term trend of capitalism but a period of adjustment in its historical development. Frey points out that, unlike the Luddites who resorted to smashing machines, today’s Western working class has more or less universal suffrage, trade union rights (however eroded) and a deep expectation of continually improved living standards.
How then should we mitigate the worst short-run impacts to ensure that labour resistance does not prevent us from realising the long-run productivity gains of contemporary technological change? Frey eschews policies of industrial renewal, instead advocating policies that would help individual workers and their families to adapt to technological change: retraining, wage insurance, tax credits and housing policies to improve labour mobility. These policy prescriptions reflect two central arguments of this book. First, that on a long enough timeline, technological change will continue to improve the material conditions of labour. This is supported by the evidence of previous industrial revolutions. Second, that while politics and collective decision-making have the power to shape the effects of technological change, the invention and development phases of technological change are viewed by Frey as occurring largely outside of the realm of politics. Inventors simply create new technologies and then governments, firms, workers and unions struggle over their impact.
The central contribution of this book is to place the current wave of technological change in a detailed and meticulously researched historical context. The author acknowledges the possibility that this period of technological change may not follow the script of previous waves; political enfranchisement of contemporary workers in some societies has the potential to stymie technological development. However, he remains optimistic that technological change will proceed relatively unhindered and ultimately result in a net benefit for workers, provided some of its worst short-term side effects can be mitigated.The book may be subject to criticism for appearing to place some aspects of technological change outside the scope of political contestation. However, at a moment when scholars are keenly interested in the impact of technological change on work and employment, this book provides a useful historical framework that can inform debates around the role of technology in shaping economic history. Frey’s book might also be used for teaching; specifically, some chapters may provide useful primers on the relationship between technology and work for graduate students.