The article that I have been assigned to do my blog critique
on is a chapter from a book, written by Michael Spence, entitled The
Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World. Michael Spence is a notable American
Economist. He holds a Ph.D. in
microeconomics from Harvard University and is currently an economics professor
at the New York University Stern School of Business. The particular chapter from his book that this
assignment focuses on is Information Technology and the Integration of the
Global Economy. Broadly, this
chapter discusses the ways in which advancing technology has affected and
continues to affect the global economy, and it’s implications for the
future. Early on, he discusses at length
the economic revolution spurred on by the massive transition to computer-based
systems and the subsequent digitization of information. This revolution saw enormous increases in
productivity and the convenience of everyday life. This revolution also had a large impact on
the structure of the job market, as technology took over the burden of many
jobs previously held by actual human beings.
Though he admits that we as a society did not adequately use the
advancing technology to reach the full potential it offered us, Spence
attributes our shortcomings to this revolution itself. He argues that the changes were so significant
and the scale was so large that we could not have hoped to fully understand the
new economy. Another topic discussed at
length by the author was globalization.
Specifically, he refers to the globalization of the economy that has
been enabled by advancing information and networking technologies. He explains how these technologies have
empowered less developed nations to essentially ‘close the gap’ on the more
developed nations in the world. The
wider accessibility to information as well as networks with which to share that
information has resulted in more educated populations and an increase in
economic potential and power. The author
attributes both the rapid growth of less developed nations and the increasingly
common practice of offshoring to these countries to this globalization caused
by advancing technology. He also argues
that although this globalization comes at a cost to more historically developed
countries and is generally viewed negatively by the citizens of those
countries, this process, overall, could be extremely beneficial. This opinion is illustrated well by a quote
from the chapter, “We can look forward to a period in which the opportunities
and incomes of poor people in many parts of the world expand substantially.” My reaction to this chapter is positive. I think the general message of this chapter
is that technology has the potential to be extremely beneficial to society, yet
it is such a young, different, and generally uncharted territory in terms of
being able to make accurate models and predictions. Thus, many aspects of
technology are viewed negatively by society, often times prematurely and
unjustly. Based off of what we have
learned so far in this class, that is an opinion that I have echoed. For instance, in my first paper, I addressed
a similar situation with the mobile phone.
The cell phone has many detractors due to the way it has altered social
infrastructure. However, these alterations aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just
different from what we historically have known and accepted to be the correct social
infrastructure. In addition, and more importantly, the benefits provided to us
by the cell phone and other technologies far outweigh any negative aspects of
them.
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