How Can We Make The Economy Work For Everyone?

Technology is spreading at a rush as it upends the business world and the traditional job market. But the inclination of technology leaders to focus on first world problems is causing concern.

The advance of technology

Technology in all its forms is evolving at a tremendous rate and improving the lives of millions of people in developed and developing countries around the world.

But its greatest challenge is not the ability to solve problems for those who have most but to ensure that those who have least are not forgotten.

Technology is a friend to those who profit from its opportunities but a foe to those struggling to grasp its inventions and breakthroughs.

While the jobs fashioned by new technologies are rightly lauded as stories of entrepreneurial and economic success the associated job losses are commonly overlooked.

For people with the right education technology presents a treasure of opportunity but for those lacking such privilege it is a less pleasant proposition.

The truth is that the effects of technology are building a brutal ‘winner takes all’ economy that breeds anxiety and alarm amongst those living on its fringes.

The march of technology, however, cannot be stopped or even slowed but its leaders can seek solutions that include a grander range and diversity of people.

Without addressing the issue even the good work that is done will be undermined by the disruption of families and households that make up the economy.

Leaders in technology

Leaders in technology admirably talk about changing the world but they must concentrate efforts to improve the lives of those displaced by the effects of digital age.

Jobs are the obvious place to start as new technologies cause tremendous economic upheaval and countless job losses with little focus given to possible remedies.

Technology companies generate another problem too as they drive down non-core wages and sub-contractor costs in their bid to satisfy the everyday whims of their first world customers.

More recently technology creates whole new populations of the self-employed who are in effect employees but without the normal benefits of holidays and sickness pay.

The challenge lies in the need for technology leaders such as Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Google’s Brin, Amazon’s Bezos and Uber’s Kalanick to ensure more people gain from their newly designed and all conquering economy.

Without a commitment to finding solutions from the leaders in the field many businesses will get rich beyond avarice, while hundreds of millions of people get poorer beyond the limits of hope.

Such a challenge can be embraced in tandem with the everyday advances of technology to ensure the digital premium lessen rather than greaten over time.

So, technology is helping and hurting people in equal measure but solutions from the leaders of technology are needed to address those left behind.