● How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations
Carl Benedikt Frey
Review via Publishers Weekly
Technological advancement stagnates when met with bureaucratic sclerosis and corporate monopoly, according to this probing study from Oxford economic historian Frey (The Technology Trap). From early civilizations to the modern era, Frey examines countervailing systems for nurturing technological progress. One is a centralized state that imposes change from the top—like ancient China, which developed cast iron, printing, and other technologies long before Europe did. The other is a decentralized system that encourages exploration—as in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution onward—where inventors can find private and public investors to fund long-shot experiments. Moving to the present, Frey argues that Silicon Valley dominated the digital age through its startup and venture capital symbiosis, and China became an industrial behemoth with a hybrid of capitalist firms and a strong state. He’s pessimistic about the future prospects for innovation in both countries, however