People Get Ready
The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy
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- ¥2,400
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- ¥2,400
発行者による作品情報
Humanity is on the verge of its darkest hour -- or its greatest moment
The consequences of the technological revolution are about to hit hard: unemployment will spike as new technologies replace labor in the manufacturing, service, and professional sectors of an economy that is already struggling. The end of work as we know it will hit at the worst moment imaginable: as capitalism fosters permanent stagnation, when the labor market is in decrepit shape, with declining wages, expanding poverty, and scorching inequality. Only the dramatic democratization of our economy can address the existential challenges we now face. Yet, the US political process is so dominated by billionaires and corporate special interests, by corruption and monopoly, that it stymies not just democracy but progress.
The great challenge of these times is to ensure that the tremendous benefits of technological progress are employed to serve the whole of humanity, rather than to enrich the wealthy few. Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols argue that the United States needs a new economy in which revolutionary technologies are applied to effectively address environmental and social problems and used to rejuvenate and extend democratic institutions. Based on intense reporting, rich historical analysis, and deep understanding of the technological and social changes that are unfolding, they propose a bold strategy for democratizing our digital destiny -- before it's too late -- and unleashing the real power of the Internet, and of humanity.
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In a stirring call to arms, McChesney (Blowing the Roof off the Twenty-First Century) and Nichols (The S Word) argue that although the digital revolution has been world-shaking and ruthlessly efficient, it has fallen short of ushering in the utopia some have predicted, because the ability to determine the future has been concentrated among just a few powerful people. Global automation and dislocation the result of which is that a tiny fraction of the workforce once needed can now complete the same amount of work will soon lead to unemployment of a startling magnitude. No one has a plan to resolve this looming so-called jobless economy, not even the big tech companies that helped create the situation. Moreover, the authors find that historically, the U.S. government does not take action until faced with catastrophe. McChesney and Nichols warn of a "citizen-less democracy," in which politicians pander only to the needs of a few wealthy donors, leaving the majority in the dust and excluding them from the process of worldbuilding. This necessary if unsettling read is not an attack on tech, but on dangerous, unchecked capitalism.
