The Wealth of Humans

Author: Ryan Avent
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466887192
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
None of us has ever lived through a genuine industrial revolution. Until now. Digital technology is transforming every corner of the economy, fundamentally altering the way things are done, who does them, and what they earn for their efforts. In The Wealth of Humans, Economist editor Ryan Avent brings up-to-the-minute research and reporting to bear on the major economic question of our time: can the modern world manage technological changes every bit as disruptive as those that shook the socioeconomic landscape of the 19th century? Traveling from Shenzhen, to Gothenburg, to Mumbai, to Silicon Valley, Avent investigates the meaning of work in the twenty-first century: how technology is upending time-tested business models and thrusting workers of all kinds into a world wholly unlike that of a generation ago. It's a world in which the relationships between capital and labor and between rich and poor have been overturned. Past revolutions required rewriting the social contract: this one is unlikely to demand anything less. Avent looks to the history of the Industrial Revolution and the work of numerous experts for lessons in reordering society. The future needn't be bleak, but as The Wealth of Humans explains, we can't expect to restructure the world without a wrenching rethinking of what an economy should be.

The Wealth of Humans

Author: Ryan Avent
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250075807
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
An investigation of how the digital revolution is fundamentally changing our concept of work, and what it means for our future economy.

Humans Need Not Apply

Author: Jerry Kaplan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216416
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
An “intriguing, insightful” look at how algorithms and robots could lead to social unrest—and how to avoid it (The Economist, Books of the Year). After decades of effort, researchers are finally cracking the code on artificial intelligence. Society stands on the cusp of unprecedented change, driven by advances in robotics, machine learning, and perception powering systems that rival or exceed human capabilities. Driverless cars, robotic helpers, and intelligent agents that promote our interests have the potential to usher in a new age of affluence and leisure—but as AI expert and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan warns, the transition may be protracted and brutal unless we address the two great scourges of the modern developed world: volatile labor markets and income inequality. In Humans Need Not Apply, he proposes innovative, free-market adjustments to our economic system and social policies to avoid an extended period of social turmoil. His timely and accessible analysis of the promises and perils of AI is a must-read for business leaders and policy makers on both sides of the aisle. “A reminder that AI systems don’t need red laser eyes to be dangerous.”—Times Higher Education Supplement “Kaplan…sidesteps the usual arguments of techno-optimism and dystopia, preferring to go for pragmatic solutions to a shrinking pool of jobs.”—Financial Times

The Wealth of Humans

Author: Ryan Avent
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780141981185
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'Ryan Avent is a superb writer ... highly readable and lively' Thomas Piketty 'A pleasure to read. This is an important argument on a subject that will shape the coming decades' Duncan Weldon, Prospect To work is human, yet the world of work is changing fast, and in unexpected ways. With rapid advances in information technology, huge swathes of the job market - from cleaners and drivers to journalists and doctors - are being automated: a staggering 47% of American employment is at risk of automation within the next two to three decades. At the same time, millions more jobs are being created. What does the future of work hold? In this illuminating new investigation of what this means for us, Ryan Avent lays bare the contradictions in today's global labour market. From Volvo's operations in Sweden to the vast 'Factory Asia' hub in China, he offers the first clear explanation of the state we're in-and how we could get out of it.

Energy and the Wealth of Nations

Author: Charles A.S. Hall
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319662198
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 507

Book Description
In this updated edition of a groundbreaking text, concepts such as energy return on investment (EROI) provide powerful insights into the real balance sheets that drive our “petroleum economy.” Hall and Klitgaard explore the relation between energy and the wealth explosion of the 20th century, and the interaction of internal limits to growth found in the investment process and rising inequality with the biophysical limits posed by finite energy resources. The authors focus attention on the failure of markets to recognize or efficiently allocate diminishing resources, the economic consequences of peak oil, the high cost and relatively low EROI of finding and exploiting new oil fields, including the much ballyhooed shale plays and oil sands, and whether alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar power can meet the minimum EROI requirements needed to run society as we know it. For the past 150 years, economics has been treated as a social science in which economies are modeled as a circular flow of income between producers and consumers. In this “perpetual motion” of interactions between firms that produce and households that consume, little or no accounting is given of the flow of energy and materials from the environment and back again. In the standard economic model, energy and matter are completely recycled in these transactions, and economic activity is seemingly exempt from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As we enter the second half of the age of oil, when energy supplies and the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption are likely to constrain economic growth, this exemption should be considered illusory at best. This book is an essential read for all scientists and economists who have recognized the urgent need for a more scientific, empirical, and unified approach to economics in an energy-constrained world, and serves as an ideal teaching text for the growing number of courses, such as the authors’ own, on the role of energy in society.

The Psychology of Money

Author: Morgan Housel
Publisher: Harriman House Limited
ISBN: 085719769X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Money—investing, personal finance, and business decisions—is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.

The Wealth of Humans

Author: Adam McCusker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781537475301
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
What is wealth? For it is certainly not money - that is only a representation or unit to measure wealth of a certain kind. Adam Smith said wealth is the annual produce of the land and labour of the society. Some kinds of wealth - often the more valued ones - are immeasurable. The word 'wealth' comes from the same route as the word 'health' - the old English word 'weal' meaning well, as in wellbeing, are you well? An economy is tasked with the purpose of fulfilling human needs and genuine desires through utilizing that land and labour of society. Fulfilling the needs and genuine desires of humans is incidentally exactly what ethics is about and Gandhi's economic philosophy saw no distinction between economics and ethics. Money has only existed for 5000 years or so - just a fraction of the time homo sapiens have been around - so we have been practicing economics and ethics pretty successfully and sustainably for the entirety of our evolution. Only during the age of 'civilization' have humans been able to separate economics and ethics. So how can we make sure that humans are properly and ethically served by the economy?I hope to show that: being uncivilized is far better than being civilized; there is no such thing as 'left-wing' and 'right-wing', only missing information; both competition and co-operation are necessary, normal and symbiotic; evil is a product of evolution, just as altruism is; humans are perfectly capable of being as positive a force on the Earth as they are currently negative, including being able to improve nature (not improve on nature); humans are the greatest net producers; left to their own devices, humans will make good and sustainable decisions; economics can never be understood without looking at and engaging with nature (including the nature of humans); the solutions to the world's problems are instinctively understood by everyone; and in fact the problems are the solutions.

Deep Economy

Author: Bill McKibben
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805076264
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
Contending that more is not better for consumers, bestselling author McKibben offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future. For those who wonder if there isn't more to life than buying, he provides insight on individual responsibility as well as global awareness.

The Wealth of Nature

Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: New Society Publisher
ISBN: 1550924788
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
The Wealth of Nature proposes a new model of economics based on the integral value of ecology. Building on the foundations of E.F. Schumacher's revolutionary "economics as if people mattered", this book examines the true cost of confusing money with wealth. By analyzing the mistakes of contemporary economics, it shows how an economy centered on natural capital-the raw materials that support human life-can move our society toward a more productive relationship with the planet that sustains us all. The Wealth of Nature suggests public policy initiatives and personal choices that can help alleviate the economic impact of peak oil. These strategies must address not only financial concerns, but the issues of resource depletion and pollution as well. Examples include: Adjusting tax policy to penalize the use of natural nonrenewable resources over recycled materials Placing public welfare above corporate interests Empowering individuals, families, and communities by prioritizing local, sustainable solutions Building economies at an appropriate scale. Profoundly insightful and impeccably argued, this book is required reading for anyone interested in the intersection of the environment and the economy as we enter the twilight of the Age of Abundance .

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life

Author: Russ Roberts
Publisher: Portfolio
ISBN: 1591847958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
"How the insights of an 18th century economist can help us live better in the 21st century. Adam Smith became famous for The Wealth of Nations, but the Scottish economist also cared deeply about our moral choices and behavior--the subjects of his other brilliant book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Now, economist Russ Roberts shows why Smith's neglected work might be the greatest self-help book you've never read. Roberts explores Smith's unique and fascinating approach to fundamental questions such as: - What is the deepest source of human satisfaction? - Why do we sometimes swing between selfishness and altruism? - What's the connection between morality and happiness? Drawing on current events, literature, history, and pop culture, Roberts offers an accessible and thought-provoking view of human behavior through the lenses of behavioral economics and philosophy"--