Technophiles often equate
technological adoption with increased prosperity. There is a sense of
technological determinism detected by them. To these economic agents,
technology provides a deterministic solutions to the global problems and thus
enables the rise in prosperity. One might wonder a certain merit being detected
in their argument. Prima facie, their arguments do sound impressive. For instance,
the invention of the automobile has revolutionized transport and accompanying it
were the network effects that enhanced growth. The increased growth certainly
translated into a substantial degree of prosperity. There might be an argument
on the degree of diffusion of prosperity or the relative shares in income by
different socio-economic groups but what is undeniable is a reduction in
poverty is something visible.
There are of course many others who
argue that the technology has accentuated inequality across the global society.
They tend to argue that technology does not further uniformity but favors a
certain section of the populace. To these skeptics, it is not per se the
technology that helps but those who use the technology are generally the well-disposed
and hence already have a head-start in the race. The laggards who are stuck so
not because they were willing laggards but the constraints meant they could not
leverage technology in the same manner as the ones who had the necessary
resources to take advantage of the same. In other words, there were and are
access differentials. It is not just access differentials across societies but
within societies too. For instance, women might not get the same level of
access as men. There is of course motivational differentials too given the new
technology would create diversions towards perhaps unproductive usages- for
instance people may watch movies on YouTube after getting access to internet
rather than spending on a productive purpose, but this is ancillary to the main
purpose. The question that should be confronted is whether technology creates
prosperity or merely facilitates the economic agents in their journey to upper
echelons in prosperity pyramid.
At the outset, it must be recognized
that there would be inequalities that would emerge from technological adoption
maybe initially. However, it must be equally recognized that there perhaps
exists a J curve of sorts for linkages between technology and increased
prosperity. There would be a few who would leap forward in the initial stages
of technological adoption yet these are merely transient phases. As the
diffusion picks up and the rest would follow suit, the benefits too would
diffuse at increasing returns. It is not about how many are at the top of the
pyramid but their duration at the top of the pyramid. The pyramid of prosperity
is something akin to a greasy pole. Climbing would be very difficult. Those who
have climbed up the ladder too would find it difficult to sustain at the top
given the greasy nature of the pole. They too would be sliding down. Evidence
does point out towards the duration of stay of top firms when they break into
the Fortune 50 or even Fortune 500. The elite is not permanent. One order of
elite gives way to the new order of elite. Yet at every stage there does exist
an increase diffusion of prosperity. It must be safely said, that the global
prosperity levels are higher than what they were some hundred years ago. In the
Indian context too, the prosperity levels are higher than they were at the time
of independence.
While critics of technology do
lament about its disadvantages if one were to call it so, its advocates too are
exuberant perhaps irrational more often than not. They tend to view a panacea
in technology. It begs at this stage whether technology creates prosperity or
something else. It must be argued that technology left to itself will not
create prosperity. It is the people who leverage the technology for something productive
that generates income, growth and subsequent prosperity. It is not technology
that has a life of its own. Technology lies in the hands of its users. The users
or the ones monetizing it are responsible for its benefits as much as its
costs. Someone had to leverage the technology to create something useful. This is
what the innovators have done. To Edison, it was the electricity that was to be
leveraged and created into a light bulb to bring light to the world. It is not
just the discovery of electricity but its applications and the subsequent
commercialization of the applications that mattered to the world. Something
similar holds good for the internet too. It is not just the connectivity that
is possible that serves good to the society. It is the consequent applications
that made internet valuable. It is those innovators who built the over the top
applications over the internet infrastructure that perhaps have made world a
better place in many ways. When one talks about Amazon or Google or Microsoft,
it is all about the people behind the scenes (and front too) who made possible
for the software driven applications to be launched to make things easy for the
people in the world.
There is an essence of monetization.
There is someone who discovers the opportunity to make money out of technology.
As they discover this and set out to achieve the same, they obviously need resources.
It is not merely the monetary resources but the human resources too. This human
resource is the one that leads to job creation. The monetization opportunities
offered by technology is something that pays off to those involved in jobs in
these companies. The spillover effects of these jobs will lead to an increased
consumption and the emergence of new allied and ancillary activities. Therefore,
the interlinkages across the sectors lead to multiplier effect leading to all
round increase in consumption and investment and obviously international trade.
These are the elements that lead to the growth in income and thus contribute to
rising wealth and prosperity. Therefore, it is sine qua non for someone to
exist to make use of the technology, to monetize it, to lead to job creation,
leading to economic growth and thus rise in income and thus overall social and
economic surplus. Technology does not, it must be reiterated, creates a
prosperity. It gives an opportunity for those eager to grab it to create one.
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