Creative writers and our problems with change

Being creative doesn’t necessarily make us friends of change or of other people’s new ideas. Jonathan Franzen’s extravagant concerns about the impact of Twitter and Facebook on thoughtful, civil discourse are only a recent example.

In his 1945 novel, Cannery Row, in an obvious authorial aside, John Steinbeck had this to say about the hottest technology of age:

"Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and aesthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than about the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept of private property disappeared. Pliers ceased to be privately owned and a tyre-pump belonged to the last man who had picked it up. Most of the babies of the period were conceived in Model T Fords and not a few were born in them. The theory of the Anglo-Saxon home became so warped that it never quite recovered."

The affordable automobile did change life physically: it allowed cities to sprawl and hold together, it reduced the disadvantages of living in the hinterland, it made it much easier to get up and go somewhere else, and it became more difficult for local bosses and businesses to fend off outside alternatives.

Steinbeck’s portentous musings on the automobile’s moral and aesthetic effect, however, look silly retrospectively.

Cannery Road was set in California during the Great Depression of the '30s. At that time, two generations of Americans hadn’t owned a car to fondle, let alone make love in — and a decade later, only the affluent half of American families owned one. They, to be sure, were white, predominately Republican, already owned a family home, a small business, an active farm, or held trade or professional licenses. They probably didn’t know too much about the clitoris and still may not.

However, over two generations later, that happy half of early adapters is as passionate as ever about their property, their Christian God, American engineering, the work ethic, higher education, traditional marriage, grandchildren, civic duty, and low taxes.

The first to the best toys have money and usually remain conservative.

Tools like the automobile, mass circulation newspapers, colored televisions, commercial air transportation, mobile phones, and now the social media change what we do. They test our resolve and serve our appetites. They don’t appear, however, to change who we are, for better or worse.

Even the Nicest Robots don’t Pay Taxes or Buy Things

Paul Krugman raises problems for the status quo even when he’s being optimistic about the future.

Last month in the New York Times, he penned a column that asked: Is Growth Over? He concluded that mainstream economic forecasts are too pessimistic because they can’t incorporate the exploding importance of smart robots in manufacturing and increasing in service industries, as well.

Private and, eventually, public employers will be able to grow profitably and expand their services without being as tied to the growth of the work force as they seem now. Society will look greyer. The workplace, on the other hand, will increasingly reflect the unpredictable tastes of robot manufactures.

“So machines may soon be ready to perform many tasks that currently require large amounts of human labor. This will mean rapid productivity growth and, therefore, high overall economic growth.

“But — and this is the crucial question — who will benefit from that growth? Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to make the case that most Americans will be left behind, because smart machines will end up devaluing the contribution of workers, including highly skilled workers whose skills suddenly become redundant.”

Krugman doesn’t close his column with a solution. However, it would belittle Krugman—and his profession—to assume that he merely set the stage for another populist campaign to raise tariffs and impose higher taxes on capital expenditures.

(Economists will follow fads when they’re operating largely in the dark. However, like hard scientists, mountains of evidence and decades of experience limit the range of options professional economists debate. And they know today that we won’t recreate Middle Class affluence by putting higher taxes on tools or raising the prices of consumer goods other people make.)

Let’s be clear, however. There are two indispensable worker activities that robots can’t perform. They can’t spend in the market place any of their contribution to the enterprise’s income or pay taxes to governments. Their lack of purchasing power and taxable incomes will cause grief in the public and private sectors.  

Their shortcomings needn’t be attacked with more government interference in the economy or in private management decision-making, or by smashing the machines. Nevertheless, allowing the economy to grow as fast as it can technically may require even more progressive taxes on the few fortunate and enterprising millions who pocket the gains from these extraordinary new technologies.