Here's a thought that I was recently introduced to: All such discussions should always be prefixed with "Given that/As long as society's distributional mechanisms are accomodating, ...".
In this particular case: "As long as society's distributional mechanisms are accomodating, technology can lead/leads to returns increasingly going to capital rather than labour."
This is important because the distributional mechanisms of society are not natural laws and they are not set in stone. So much of our lives is already affected by technology, why not change those distributional mechanisms to minimize the negative impact of technology?
For example, there is a lot of debate these days surrounding policy proposals like the basic income or the job guarantee, both of which would likely have changed the impact of technological change.
So we can discuss whether or not the regressive changes in distribution of the last 40 years were primarily [0] due to technology or not until the cows come home. But I would argue that this is not the key question. The key questions are (1) are we happy with these regressive changes in distribution and (2) if not, what do we need to change to revert them?
[0] After all, power grabs by the top 0.1% very obviously happened in that period of time. Just look at Thatcher and Reagan and the like-minded political movements they inspired in other Western countries. The only question is about the extent of their impact.
In this particular case: "As long as society's distributional mechanisms are accomodating, technology can lead/leads to returns increasingly going to capital rather than labour."
This is important because the distributional mechanisms of society are not natural laws and they are not set in stone. So much of our lives is already affected by technology, why not change those distributional mechanisms to minimize the negative impact of technology?
For example, there is a lot of debate these days surrounding policy proposals like the basic income or the job guarantee, both of which would likely have changed the impact of technological change.
So we can discuss whether or not the regressive changes in distribution of the last 40 years were primarily [0] due to technology or not until the cows come home. But I would argue that this is not the key question. The key questions are (1) are we happy with these regressive changes in distribution and (2) if not, what do we need to change to revert them?
[0] After all, power grabs by the top 0.1% very obviously happened in that period of time. Just look at Thatcher and Reagan and the like-minded political movements they inspired in other Western countries. The only question is about the extent of their impact.