World Bank Says Internet Technology May Widen Inequality (nytimes.com) 133
HughPickens.com writes: Somini Sengupta writes in the NY Times that a new report from the World Bank concludes that the vast changes wrought by Internet technology have not expanded economic opportunities or improved access to basic public services but stand to widen inequalities and even hasten the hollowing out of middle-class employment. "Digital technologies are spreading rapidly, but digital dividends — growth, jobs and services — have lagged behind," says the bank in a news release announcing the report. "If people have the right skills, digital technology will help them become more efficient and productive, but if the right skills are lacking, you'll end up with a polarized labor market and more inequality," says Uwe Deichmann. Those who are already well-off and well-educated have been able to take advantage of the Internet economy, the report concludes pointedly, but despite the expansion of Internet access, 60 percent of humanity remains offline. According to the report, in developed countries and several large middle-income countries, technology is automating routine jobs, such as factory work, and some white-collar jobs. While some workers benefit, "a large share" of workers get pushed down to lower-paying jobs that cannot be automated. "What we're seeing is not so much a destruction of jobs but a reshuffling of jobs, what economists have been calling a hollowing out of the labor market. You see the share of mid-level jobs shrinking and lower-end jobs increasing."
The report adds that in the developing world digital technologies are not a shortcut to development, though they can accelerate it if used in the right way. "We see a lot of disappointment and wasted investments. It's actually quite shocking how many e-government projects fail," says Deichmann. "While technology can be extremely helpful in many ways, it's not going to help us circumvent the failures of development over the last couple of decades. You still have to get the basics right: education, business climate, and accountability in government."
The report adds that in the developing world digital technologies are not a shortcut to development, though they can accelerate it if used in the right way. "We see a lot of disappointment and wasted investments. It's actually quite shocking how many e-government projects fail," says Deichmann. "While technology can be extremely helpful in many ways, it's not going to help us circumvent the failures of development over the last couple of decades. You still have to get the basics right: education, business climate, and accountability in government."
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The same argument could be made for reading.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The same argument could be made for reading.
Don't know whether to mod up or reply...absolutely true. Here's the World Bank, creator of debt among people who have no money, arguing that sharing information more freely will widen inequality. Though their logic may be sound if you select your samples very carefully (the richest will get richer), I can't see how the world's poorest having access to history's accumulated knowledge including up to the second latest research, more extensive and easier to access than any pre-internet library that ever was, even if you have to walk a day and wait in line for hours to get access, could be anything but good for the world's poorest people. Sure, people with better access will have more advantage, but that doesn't mean that removing access for all would in any way benefit the least fortunate.
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Sure, but all government is based on the worst edge case scenario. Terrorist attack is a very unlikely event, war on drugs, war on poverty, SS, Medicare, minimum wage, FDIC, FHA, all of these things start by rallying the mob around the least likely edge cases. Scarrying people is always the most politically profitable strategy and it works. Taking the worst edge case scenario and building a policy around it that negatively impacts everyone... No child left behind means that all children will be left beh
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
That mass vaccination and universal education - fucking government eh?
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Privatize everything, then we can go back to donkey trails between private estates and market centers.
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Teaching everyone to read and write offers huge advantages to individuals and society. The private sector would only teach those who could pay.
I don't understand what you mean by edge cases. Mass vaccination is an obvious public good that would never be done by profit seeking companies.
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Ever thought that the sharing of information isn't the problem, but other things the Internet enabled?
Say, you can find qualified people in other countries with lower wages and have them work for you over the Internet - thereby adding downward pressure on the very same jobs in your own country. At the same time, somewhat unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be downward pressure on CEO jobs - even though I'd bet you could find qualified MBAs in "cheaper labour force" countries...
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A transnational corporation is just a normal one with a bigger consumer base.
As such, the heads are atop a much larger organization with commensurate pay increases.
It is natural "the gap" will widen...even if the average wage stagnates, which it isn't, because many in ppor countries now have non-trivial pay jobs.
The average wealth continues to climb, as does the average wealth and access to food and products. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
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Ever thought that the sharing of information isn't the problem, but other things the Internet enabled?
Say, you can find qualified people in other countries with lower wages and have them work for you over the Internet - thereby adding downward pressure on the very same jobs in your own country. At the same time, somewhat unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be downward pressure on CEO jobs - even though I'd bet you could find qualified MBAs in "cheaper labour force" countries...
Seems a narrow view - the jobs are being outsourced because underutilized resources abroad can to them more cost effectively. This benefits the overseas labor pool, bringing their poor up. If it causes temporary unemployment in the outsourcing country, those new unemployed should retrain into employable skills - which they can do much more easily than the people who the jobs got outsourced to. Bringing up incomes in populations that live on less than $3 per person per day does much more to narrow the wea
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The internet inherently magnifies one particular divide, the intellectual one. Just look at the pseudo celebrities with fabricated public personalities who routinely crash and burn when they foolishly expose their true intellect to the public on the internet. Sure they can still attract, well, other idiots but for everyone else, just eww. The intellectual divide becomes really obvious on the internet and oh my don't geeks and nerds have fun with it ;).
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There will always be people to take what they have and run with it.
There will always be people who look at what they have and blame someone else.
Whether it's a street vendor selling trinkets or food, or a Steve Job and Woz, someone will move ahead while others will simply mark time.
All hope is not lost! (Score:2)
Surely there is hope yet for technological solutionism! Maybe they need VR goggles? Wearables? IoT devices?...Teledildonics? There must be some gadget that can magically allow people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!
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Surely there is hope yet for technological solutionism! Maybe they need VR goggles? Wearables? IoT devices?...Teledildonics? There must be some gadget that can magically allow people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!
If we're talking about The Internet, then clearly it's Bootstrap [getbootstrap.com]
Re:All hope is not lost! (Score:4, Funny)
>> There must be some gadget that can magically allow people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps!
I thought that was "one laptop per child." :)
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Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And now for something really controversial (Score:4, Insightful)
We realized it is more fun to have more disposable income and the freedom to use and enjoy it.
It's more fun to have a sports car, nice house and toys and freedom to travel, than to be anchored down with a house full or yard apes/rug rats/curtain climbers.
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We realized it is more fun to have more ...
Unfortunately, fun does not perpetuate a functional society.
Re:And now for something really controversial (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, fun does not perpetuate a functional society.
No single thing does, but I would argue that the enjoyment of at least a portion of one's time, be it at work or play, is an important element in a functional society.
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the enjoyment of at least a portion of one's time, be it at work or play, is an important element in a functional society.
While true, that's not what GP wrote.
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Unfortunately, fun does not perpetuate a functional society.
The real problem here is that society and the economy is based on infinite growth and consumption. That's about as real as a pastafarian.
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The real problem here is that society and the economy is based on infinite growth and consumption.
And yet the alternatives are either as moonbeam unrealistic ("true" socialism) as bitcoins, or too horrible to consider (completely nuking high density countries like China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico).
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that is what needs to be reworked.
Better minds than your's have tried. And failed spectacularly.
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And this should concern me why....?
It will be functional till my days are over...and after that, what do I care?
I'll be dead.
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It is believed
By whom, and with what evidence?
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It is believed
By whom, and with what evidence?
Ancient alien theorists?
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It is believed
By whom, and with what evidence?
For example, the fascists running the 3rd Reich claimed things pretty much like this. I think that makes the claim highly suspect.
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The fascists running the 3rd Reich also claimed that fresh air and vigorous physical activity were good for you.
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Well, everybody knows this is untrue, so there.
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It is believed that modern society in the West developed by the upper-middle and upper classes' excess kids effectively outbreeding the lower classes over hundreds of years, resulting in gains in health, IQ and longer time preferences.
- It is believed by whom?
- What's the relation between upper classes and higher IQ before modern society?
Re:And now for something really controversial (Score:5, Interesting)
I could mostly buy into the idea that this was something of a self-reinforcing process where the people who got into tribal leadership positions initially did so through some genetic advantages in health, strength, and intelligence.
The initial advantage (probably in hunting) gave them access to superior nutrition, increasing their own survival and increasing the likelihood of having offspring, and offspring that grew larger and healthier.
As cultures and roles solidified, these people were in a good place to claim leadership based on demonstrated attributes (leading more successful hunts, killing more enemies) as well as possessing some inherent personality traits that gave them more charisma or being able to defeat challengers from within their own ranks.
Over time this leadership group evolved into an aristocracy, whose superior access to food, shelter, selection of mates (IIRC, there have been cross-cultural studies of beauty that align with physical traits associated with childbearing) likely enabled their children significant advantages, warding off some of the endemic developmental problems of poor nutrition, disease exposure, and so on, in addition to situational advantages -- like being able to gain exposure to learning and teaching versus taking immediate risks (I would imagine being taught how to hunt dangerous game or fight in combat by someone skilled and successful at it would have some survival value versus doing it without much exposure to training).
I doubt it's a perfect long term system, as eventually the aristocracy can grow sclerotic and actual shelter the weak, in addition to inbreeding promoting genetic defects -- look at hemophilia among the European aristocracy.
As a side note, I've done some work at an extremely exclusive country club, and I'm always kind of surprised at how healthy and vigorous appearing the rich are. Slim, well-toned, attractive, few signs of any of the dietary-driven obesity of poor people or evidence of the chronic illnesses and development issues.
Re:And now for something really controversial (Score:5, Insightful)
The difficulty with the idiocracy hypothesis is not that the less intelligent outbreed the more intelligent (so you have fewer captains of industry and more rank-and file... the world will survive) it's that the intelligent are having to subsidize an ever increasing amount of the less intelligent.
Yeah yeah yeah, 1%; that's not the point. From laws to protect idiocy from itself, which end up as hindrances to find better solutions, to intelligence being looked upon as near witchcraft; society is heavily geared towards mediocrity so the pinheads have a fighting chance.
But it comes at the cost of further development, and especially when the intelligent figure "why bother" to explore new horizons, especially when they have to fight off the idiot hoard as well.
Regression towards mean is a scary prospect when the lower bound keeps sinking.
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Your theory might be more compelling if extreme wealth, income, or any other proxy for appreciation by society had much of a correlation with intelligence. "Captains of industry" have never really been known for their vast intelligence (except possibly in financial areas), but are instead characterized by their charisma, tenacity, or ruthlessness. The scientists, engineers, and thinkers are typically middle class and would be lumped into your rank-and-file category.
The intelligent are having to subsidize th
You can't "solve" poverty (Score:2, Insightful)
You will NEVER solve poverty, as long as poverty is defined as being in the bottom quintile of income, as most Governments and NGOs typically do. You'll ALWAYS have someone at the bottom 20% - and thus always have "poverty". Why? It's a great way to grow Government, increase Government's own reach and power (as long as they're the ones dispensing the largesse), and have something to distract a goodly portion of the remaining 80%.
As far as access to everything, the rich can buy access if they want, but ha
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If that was the definition of poverty, the poverty rate would remain fixed at 20%. It isn't. Therefore, you must be wrong about the definition, and we can reduce poverty a lot by application of money.
Is there a reason why anti-poverty programs should not be means-tested? While I wouldn't object to another thousand a month or so, I've already got more than enough money for my purposes, and I do happen to be over the poverty line. What I want, personally, is for everyone to have a good shot at a good l
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What have we done for the last 2 generations? We've inverted it with the more intelligent having fewer and fewer kids.
Dumb people sometimes have smart kids. We usually don't find out because in the home of the stupid, intelligence is usually maligned and snuffed out instead of encouraged. What we have done for the last two generations is destroy our education system. THAT is what you're seeing the results of now. Well, that and the ongoing growing inequity in wealth. It's driven not by the internet, but by the equally ongoing looting of wealth from developed nations by scum who profit only from the suffering of others. The
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Where I live, which is a central city in a metro area, the public schools seem just fine. I don't know about schools wherever it is that you live, but they are certainly not uniformly bad. We're not destroying the educational system. When my father was young, people frequently didn't finish high school, for one reason or other, so high school graduates were generally pretty smart to begin with. When almost everyone graduates, high school graduates as a group will seem a lot less competent. We're seein
Interesting, but I'm not buying that at face value (Score:2)
It is believed that modern society in the West developed by the upper-middle and upper classes' excess kids effectively outbreeding the lower classes over hundreds of years, resulting in gains in health, IQ and longer time preferences. That's a fusion of nature and nurture reinforcing one another. ...
Interesting, but I'm not buying that at face value.
First of all, it's the working/lower class that has the most children throughout most of human history. Only a lot died early, while others developed pathogen
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It is believed that modern society in the West developed by the upper-middle and upper classes' excess kids effectively outbreeding the lower classes over hundreds of years, resulting in gains in health, IQ and longer time preferences.
[citation needed]
The rich always want to believe they're rich because they're genetically superior to everyone else. I've never seen a shred of evidence it's actually true.
Using the excess of workforce (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem now is that the brilliant minds that create entirely new occupations mostly focus that creativity on occupations that are directly dependent on the latest technology. This is natural, as where would you find new occupations easier than in new technologies?
However, we need a brilliant mind that finds new occupations that, while using the new technologies, don't depend on them. We need someone to find a way to use the excess workforce created by automatisation in such a way as to not require from that workforce the very fact that made it replaceable by automatisation.
The question that needs to be answered isn't "what new jobs are created by the new technological environnement" as the answer to that will make you fight for workers with every other innovator.
The question is "what new jobs can be done by those who the technological environnement made superfluous." So, essentially, what can I do with a million people whose previous occupation is automatisable?
I believe those new jobs will come in the form of "computer assisted individual aimed art.", like, for example, "painting pretty environnements and props for VR semi-custom games" or "supporting actors in personal movies in which the customer is the protagonist"
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So you're saying: we need more Melinda Gates in the world, driving technology (not to mention capital) toward humanitarian projects instead of, or at least in addition to, greater concentration of wealth.
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Not humanitarian projects.
I believe the objective must be fundamentally self-serving for the process of excess workforce employment.
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Not humanitarian projects.
I believe the objective must be fundamentally self-serving for the process of excess workforce employment.
Some of the largest religions in the world believe that helping others _is_ helping (serving) yourself, the Buddhists are beginning to collect objective neuroscience that backs up their beliefs.
It's called birth control (Score:2)
Has Been a Problem in Every Economic Revolution (Score:2)
But this process of replacing one occupation with another has always been slow. Society needs time to adjust to a change in required skill sets. In truth, few farmers really retrain as manufacturers and few manufacturers go on to become computer engineers. It is much more likely to be the next generation that trains into the new skill set modern society requires. The farmers’ children go on to be manufacturers and the manufacturers' children become computer scientists. But at some point, the rate of change may happen quicker than children take to grow up. At some point, the manufacturer has to retrain as a computer engineer or confront a life with no livelihood.
If the past is a predictor (anarchists, communists, fascists and other violent revolutionar
Myopic (Score:2)
The problem is that for many there is a complete lack of a social safety net and adequate programs to help them get to where they need to to become productive members of society. We need good social programs and the legalization and legislation of recreational drugs. If you do the latter first you'll have the money for the former.
Of course this requires us to get our collective heads out of our asses, so it probably won't happen. Blaming Internet technologies is not seeing the big picture.
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I think every conformist boomer knew at least one "layabout" who chose the path of recreational drugs and/or living off of the social safety net, and they despise those people for the fun they had in their youth, while the conformist was busting their ass working 3 jobs to put themselves through school, walking uphill in the snow both ways to and from work and school, and now they'll be damned if they do anything to let other people have that lifestyle that they missed the opportunity to enjoy, or even try,
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Lack of social safety net? We have way too much net. There is so much safety net that people who are in the net can't get out because what they get is more then what they get if they try to get out.
I have seen people get a job, and ask to work less hours because they will lose government handouts. They make x amount, they then lose housing assistance and other assistance. The safety net is what traps people in poverty for most.
Just look at China (Score:5, Interesting)
China is the top country for poor people moving into the middle class. A lot of that movement is from millions of people setting up mom and pop shops. Cell phones are very important to the functioning of this segment of the market and cell phone are a window into the Internet. So I'd say they have it backwards. They are focusing on the small number of tech lottery winners and ignoring the major improvement cell phones has had on ordinary people's lives.
Re:Just look at China (Score:5, Informative)
It USED to be that way in the US too....but of late, between Federal, State and Local regulations, red tape and taxes, it is damned hard to start up, much less run a small business these days. So many of the rules and all, are easy for a large corporation to handle, they can dedicate whole departments to the regulatory paperwork and tax payment schedules.
But it is a bit cryptic and confusing to the common person, who would be better served spending more of their time grooming and growing their business and business processes.
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Examples?
The few "legitimate" examples I've seen were big companies trying to keep small ones out of their turf via bogus safety regulations. I's not "socialists" doing it, but crony capitalists. (Which also exist in China, by the way.)
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Last time I checked, about 80% of US businesses failed in the first five years.
This is great. This means we're giving people the ability to start new businesses, even if they aren't promising. We can't tell which businesses will thrive and which won't, so as a society we start a lot of them and see who's standing later.
Central Banks Responsible for this (Score:5, Insightful)
I worked in automation equipment for many years. Companies would typically come to use when they needed to expand capacity. When we would work up a quote we would look at their current process and come up with several options from very simple conveying system with manual tool stations for the operators to fully automated systems. Obviously there was a huge capital cost difference between these options. Two big factors that went into the recommendation were the labor rates and interest rates. The companies were looking for a specific return on investment. In a free market when interest rates are low and labor rates are high due to low unemployment and lots of savings it is better to automate as the interest on capital costs are low. When the interest rates are high and labor rates are low due to high unemployment and low savings it is much better to hire people and go with manual stations. This is as it should be and would lead to sustained growth.
But when the Central Banks lower interest rates way below the market rates it makes automation cheap no matter what is going on in the economy. This is the situation we are in. It is cheaper to automate even though labor rates are low and there is low workplace participation. Allow rates to return to their market levels and this will change and we can go back to sustainable growth. Of course we won't do this because it would hurt the Wall St. Banks and politicians pocketbooks.
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Still waaaaaaaay below the market rate.
Well if the world bank says it... (Score:2, Funny)
It must mean exactly the opposite. EG "The internet makes the bars and door of their guilded cage visible."
Enablers always widen inequality (Score:2, Insightful)
Anytime you provide society with a productive enabler, those who are more eager to build wealth will use it to, you guessed it, build wealth. The lazy of society will not use it to build wealth.
There are always people who are more willing to work, more willing to produce, and more eager to build wealth, than other people. This is what so-called social scientists do not understand about human nature. People are not all the same, and the only way to make them so is to DISABLE the eager beavers (which are the
Re:Enablers always widen inequality (Score:5, Interesting)
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Cost cutting people, the ones that outsource jobs to meet bonus goals, are not making life better for anyone but themselves. They are social and business equivalent of dumping toxic waste into a river.
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So the guy working three jobs to pay his bills is lazy and the guy spending a couple of hours on the phone to his stockbroker and his pet politicians is productive?
damn socalist bankers (Score:1)
allways whinning about inequality from the top of the money tree.
they are right! (Score:1)
Re:they are right! (Score:4, Insightful)
For now. How would things be in eg America if the government had to balance its budget? Probably be done through extreme austerity and all those Walmart workers would suddenly have a hell of a time making ends meet without government help.
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EU members are forced to balance their budgets, and countries like Ireland and Germany have improved their economies as a result. Countries like Greece and Spain are suffering not because they are forced to balance their budgets, but because they didn't balance their budgets soon enough.
No, it could simply be done by cutting government programs back to the levels of a couple o
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Median household income in constant dollars has been fairly steady for quite a few years now, while productivity went up. In other words, inequality of wealth in the US means that relatively few people benefit when we become wealthier. If most people were getting better off, there wouldn't be as much dissatisfaction with people getting better off faster.
Education should reduce inequality, by giving everyone a good start in life.
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That is literally true, although you seem to have no understanding what it actually means.
That's nonsense in so many ways. First of all, you compare median household income to average productivity. And a stagnating median doesn't mean that "relatively few people benefit"; in
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You seem to feel that the median household income can stay steady, but not be bad because it mixes some things up. However, if the median is staying the same, at least half the people aren't benefiting no matter how you define it. That's not a good situation to be in. You're also not looking at the total cost of living, since things like food and shelter go up. My current house is a lot better than the one I grew up in, but what really matters is where the rent on an X-bedroom apartment is going. Sure
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No, that is mathematically false. The median can stay the same even if almost everybody's income increases significantly.
I don't "feel" anything about the median, I'm simply saying that your statement is mathematically false. But your error in understanding the median is only on
And of course the obvious solution... (Score:2)
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As one who makes a lot more than the median, I'm fine with that. Just sayin'.
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Be careful what you wish for.....
The median worldwide per-capita household income is $2,920,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/166... [gallup.com]
Ah Yes, The Inequality Concern (Score:3, Insightful)
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Addressed by setting up a straw man and responding to his claims. She was asked about people in that MP's constituency being worse off _relatively_to_1979_, not relatively to the rich. He was certainly not complaining that they didn't "get sufficiently richer" - he was complaining about them having trouble securing a house to live in and providing for themselves on a daily basis, more so than 11 years earlier. But leave it to the "Iron Lady" provide the "iron clad" argument which hits you over the head with
Upskilling not provided... (Score:1)
Economics, not technology (Score:2)
There's a really easy way to turn all those low paying jobs into middle class jobs: just pay more! But we don't, because we can get away with paying less, and we never want to pay more for anything than we absolutely have to.
Technology is shifting what jobs there's demand for, but it doesn't determine how much we pay for those jobs. That's determined by economics, and politics, and social institutions. We can fix the problem, but only if we focus on the real causes. Technology won't fix it, because tech
This is 2016... (Score:1)
Experiment with your assets (Score:1)
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A lot of threats from a guy who spends his day playing WoW and facebooking on his Apple phone.
You'd never rise up because (a) you have it too good (b) you're easily manipulated by media (c) you're fundamentally lazy
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"Hoarding" is not the problem.
The problem is the newly generated "wealth" due to inflation goes to those that are already hoarding it - that money in a way is worth more than ours because economic inflation doesn't happen until they start spending, the value of those dollars doesn't go down until after they are spent. These people are always increasing in dollars "hoarded" even if they are spending - and spending it hurts the rest of us.
The solution is to stop printing more, starve them into loss mode.
The
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They don't hoard wealth. They just make sure that a very disproportionate amount of new wealth goes to them. If they had a lot of money, but couldn't really replace it, it wouldn't be a potentially big problem.