Technology, Culture, Economics and Politics
Last week, I wrote about the central role of technology in enabling the transition to environmental sustainability. This week, I want to expand my analysis to discuss the central and causal role that technology plays in our way of life. Ever since humans invented agriculture and moved beyond “hunting and gathering” for subsistence, technological change has been affecting where and how we live. at 19the th In the 20th century, the development of train travel (1803) and the telegraph (1837) enabled faster travel and communication over longer distances. end of 19the th and early 20sthe th Centuries have witnessed the development of motorized vehicles. In 1903, the Wright Brothers were born, and the world kept getting smaller.Air conditioning was invented in the early 20th centurythe th Beginning in the 1960s and becoming common in American homes starting in the 1960s. Refrigerators, radios, televisions, telephones, computers, the Internet, wireless communications, and of course smartphones have all brought about dramatic changes in the way we live and where we live.
American suburbia was built around cars. Air conditioning makes sun belt settlement possible. Cheap air travel has enabled an explosion in global tourism and international education. Facetime and Zoom have made frequent face-to-face interactions possible at almost negligible cost. This means that people can travel to school or work anywhere in the world with the touch of a button, and maintain daily communication with family and friends. Global jet travel could bring humans (and their contagious viruses) anywhere in the world in a matter of hours, or at most days.
Technological change has been the biggest driver of rapid cultural change over the past two centuries. It changes the way we live, putting us in direct contact with people and places that are very different from those we have come into contact with locally. Foods that were once specific to a country or a particular city are now available everywhere. New combinations of food, music, theatre, art and knowledge are being created as different places interact with other different places. In some cases, extremely narrow-minded and even xenophobic people are unaware of the global impact on their way of life. They don’t think sushi is a Japanese dish, and probably think pizza and bagels were invented in America.
We are eager consumers of new technologies, and when we use them, it changes the way we live and sometimes even the way we see the world. This in turn affects our economic interactions and consumption patterns. The growth of a service economy with less physical labor has led to a (for many) sedentary workday, which in turn has led to the growth of commercial gyms and careers like strength training and physical and occupational therapy. The invention of the internet gave birth to a web-based industry—companies like Google, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Zoom. These companies have dramatically changed the way we receive and process information. In turn, social media has led to narrow dissemination of information and greater political polarization. It also brings ease of communication and information sharing, which creates the possibility of greater information transparency, but also creates disinformation.
The news media often focuses on political trends and opinions, sometimes with the impression that politics is the single major force that shapes how people live, where they live and what they do. I’m a political scientist by training, and I’m sure at some point I believed that too. But over the years, I’ve become a technological determinist. For example, the fossil fuel industry and its advocates argue that public policy will determine our future energy mix. Policy matters, but as I pointed out last week, technological developments matter more. Today, we hear about countries trying to reduce global trade, which experts believe will disrupt global supply chains to some degree. These chains were built on the invention of container shipping, bar codes, and cheap communication and shipping. These inventions still exert a powerful influence on corporate behavior. They enable companies to produce higher quality and lower cost goods and services and enhance their ability to compete in what is still a very globalized market.While supply chains are being replaced by more permanent supplies netEven in the face of political obstacles, the competitive advantage of the global supply system remains. Companies have found workarounds to avoid anti-trade policies. If the U.S. government restricts imports from China, companies will seek or establish suppliers in Vietnam, Indonesia or Kansas. Advances in automation and artificial intelligence have made labor prices less important in manufacturing.
The causal sequence is that new technologies change human behavior and culture. This in turn affects economic life and economic interaction. The pursuit of economic well-being has the greatest impact on politics and public policy. But the most powerful force in this causal sequence is technology. It initiates actions to change the status quo.
The problem with the importance and impact of technology is that the positive impact of a new technology must be balanced against its negative impact or cost.America’s political economy is better equipped to monetize it benefit New technology than regulation and mitigation cost they bring. While the use of new medical technologies is regulated by the precautionary principle, most other technologies are used liberally and only regulated when their negative effects are too obvious to ignore.new drug being tested forward They are allowed to be listed.In contrast, non-medicinal chemicals confirmed Acts that cause harm are rarely regulated.
The irony, of course, is that once a technology is proven to cause harm, the typical regulatory approach is to require the use of another technology to mitigate that harm, such as using catalytic converters to reduce motor vehicle pollution. Another response would be to encourage the invention of a new technology that removes the feared hazards, such as electric cars with no tailpipe emissions. The question then becomes the logistical and economic feasibility of implementing the new technology. In some cases, new technologies invented to replace harmful technologies have unintended benefits that can be marketed as new products. Seat belts and airbags made cars safer, and car safety itself became a marketable “product.”
There are also new technologies that initially had limited impact but later had a large, unintended impact. The internet was originally invented to share data between U.S. government computers for analysis. It was invented to improve the security and availability of data. Eventually, the U.S. government commercialized it and the subsequent development of web browsers and websites made it a method of sharing information and entertainment. With the development of search engines and artificial intelligence, the use of this technology has expanded, bringing many positive and negative effects. Last week in New York, a “social media influencer” sparked a near-riot in Union Square, drawing large crowds to a “giveaway” that got out of hand. The behavior of social media influencers and influencers originated before the internet, but the invention of the internet made possible the speed at which crowds gather and grow in Union Square. NYPD standard operating procedures were challenged by this behavior and now need to be revised.
The social, economic and political impact of technology raises extremely challenging governance and regulatory issues. Internet technology and smartphone-driven economic interactions have created new business models, such as Uber and Airbnb. For decades, governments figured out how to regulate taxis and hotels, but these new businesses brought new problems that were difficult to understand and regulate. And, Uber and Airbnb have strong customer bases that support the maintenance of these new services. It is often difficult for governments to understand the technology or changed behavior of these new ventures enough to address negative impacts. We see the same phenomenon in efforts to regulate social media and artificial intelligence.
Despite these problems, the power of technological innovation cannot be contained or ignored. Extrapolating future developments from historical trend lines is the wrong prescription. The development and spread of technology is unpredictable. New technologies will continue to be a major cause of social, economic and political change. It’s not a single influence, but it’s a dominant one.
