Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation

Tyler Cowen is a writer, blogger, and an economist. It is in the latter role that he is foremost although his influential blog, Marginal Revolution, is renowned and I would certainly recommend it. He has written five books, not counting textbooks, and his latest is Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation. While the title tells you about the main theme of the book I found that, beyond the economics of our current snail-like recovery from the depths of the recession, this book is a cornucopia of ideas about a diverse number of aspects of our life both now and in the future.There are three Parts to the book which focus on first, the growing divide between those who earn more, much more than average and those who are below-average earners; second, the importance of machines and, in particular, games in our future; and third, the changing nature of work.The opening chapters establish some of the important themes for the book by describing the current environment of stagnation and making the claim, that will be supported by examples throughout the book, that "new technologies already emerging will lead us out of" the current stagnant economy. In fact the economy is not stagnant for everyone, for those who have already adapted and are involved in the "right" sectors of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), in particular the growth in computers, the internet, and most importantly intelligent machines. Cowen also introduces the metaphor of Chess that returns again and again throughout the book. You do not need to be an expert in the game to understand the power of intelligent machines that can 'crunch' the data necessary to defeat grandmasters every, every time they are challenged."As intelligent analysis machines become more powerful and more commonplace, the most obvious and direct beneficiaries will be the humans who are adept at working with computers and with related devices for communication and information processing. If a laborer can augment the value of a major tech improvement by even a small bit, she will likely earn well. (p 21)He supports this with examples from areas like the growth of cell phones in both quantity and quality, the changes brought about by super-computers that play chess and for several years have been significantly better than the best grandmasters, and the changing nature of work with examples from companies at the forefront of the new age like Google and Amazon. The tests given prospective employees at Google are described and they seem like something out of a trial for Mensa. Are they easy?"There's a whole book titled Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? by William Poundstone. A few minutes reading it will make the answer clear to most readers, even if the word smart is not exactly the right word (Picasso was a genius but I doubt he could have landed a job at Google's Mountain View headquarters)." (p 35)The days when you could just show up, role up your sleeves and start selling or doing any job are dwindling.The changes discussed, documented, and commented upon in the first part of the book carry over into the latter two parts. There are and will be more changes to the nature of how you obtain a job --note the impact of social networking websites like Facebook or LinkedIn-- and your workplace whether it is an office, a factory or a sales counter. That the days of the lone scientist are over seems even more true as the complexity of machines as tools grows exponentially. Education faces changes as well due to the impact of the world of new machines. Cowen discusses the rise of MOOCS (massive online courses), information blogs, and the ubiquity of avenues for online education. But there is more."It is not just formal online education and blogs. Apps. TED lectures on YouTube, Twitter, reading Wikipedia, or just learning how to work and set up your iPad are all manifestations of this new world of competitive education, based on interaction with machine intelligence. These new methods of learning are all based on the principles of time-shifting (watch and listen when you want), user control, direct feedback, the construction of online communities, and the packaging of information into much smaller bits than the traditional lecture or textbook chapter." (p 181)Late in the book Cowen discusses the potential changes for his own profession, the 'dismal science' of Economics. He anticipates that theoretical models will be challenged by more and more data-driven approaches. He says (and as someone with an Economics degree I read with interest) it will go as follows:"(a) much better data, (b) higher standards for empirical tests, and (c) lots of growth in complex theory but not matched by a corresponding growth in impact. Mathematical economics, computational economics, complexity economics, and game theory continue to grow, as we would expect of a diverse and specialized discipline, but they are if anything losing relative ground in terms of influence. Economics is becoming less like Einstein or Euclid, and more like studying the digestive system of a starfish." (p 222)The economics profession is like other social sciences and, like the economy as a whole, will be changing in ways that both take advantage and depend upon ever more powerful and complex computing and communication devices. There is much more in this challenging compendium of facts and ideas that will change our world. The direction of this change will determine where you and I will be and what we will do in the age of intelligent machines. In Average is Over you get one very knowledgeable economist's glimpse into that future.

I follow Cowen's blog closely enough that I was not at all surprised by any of his predictions. Nonetheless I consider this book an essential read, especially if you are interested in politics or economics or automation or science or chess. If, like me, you are a Cowen fan, you'll find here the most comprehensive exegesis of how he sees "things" developing over the next, say, 25 years. In contrast to Marginal Revolution, where Cowen often expresses his vision most eloquently in the text he uses to link to other writing on the Internet, Average Is Over is written in a sort of case-study or war gaming style, trying to tease out the most plausible scenario for the medium run future in a variety of areas. The subtitle is misleading. First, it suggests a horrible airport bookstore business development book for executives. Second, it harkens too much to Cowen's earlier book The Great Stagnation. While this is in some weak sense a "sequel" to TGS, that was a fundamentally more macroeconomically focused book than this. The most interesting parts of Average Is Over are microeconomic in nature and more directly concern chess and online dating. (These parts are interesting partly because of the insight they give into Cowen himself, and his personal and intellectual development. Marginal Revolution, when it reveals anything of Cowen, tends to do so through the lenses of art, travel and cooking, rather than chess or his personal life.)I guess my main complaint about the book is that for someone as well-travelled as Cowen it is rather parochial in scope, basically a story about the US and Western Europe. I should mention that I read Cowen as essentially sanguine about the medium run, while being cognizant of the undesirable nature of some likely or inevitable societal developments. Yet geopolitical considerations are strangely absent from the scenarios he imagines, and it is easy to envision such global considerations making the political or economic situation in, e.g., the US dramatically worse. I know from his blog, for example, that Cowen is a Eurozone (and perhaps European Union?) pessimist; but we get no sense of how the automation trends underlying Cowen's prognostications may or may not influence the possibility of Eurozone breakup, nor what the likely results might be. Cowen explains how economic forces are making our workers want to move to Texas and how the likely continuation of these trends may convince our retirees to move to Mexico, or make our society look more like Mexico's. With the reshoring of manufacturing and the continuation of automation, he sees tighter economic ties between the US, Canada, and Mexico. But what does all this mean for international politics and trade in the Western Hemisphere, more broadly? Finally, and probably most importantly, there is little of Asia in this book, beyond fairly obvious predictions about how competition with China will be demagogued in American politics. Yet the same forces of automation are at work in China and India (witness the robotic noodle chefs in Shanghai Cowen blogged on MR), and China and India are very different from the US (as well as each other) on three crucial axes -- level of economic development, demography, and Internet penetration. So the medium run path for the Chinese and Indian societies and economies is not only opaque to an American economist (and his American readers), but it is also sure to diverge from the American trajectory in interesting ways that cannot help but impact the predictions Cowen makes about US politics and economics. More engagement with this issue would have been interesting. (I could go on to other global issues that surely bear upon Cowen's predictions for the US, such as the slowly simmering sectarian war that has engulfed the Mideast -- with sporadic violent flare-ups -- for 45 years. But now we're really getting beyond the intended scope of his book, so I can more easily forgive such omissions. )Tldr: Tyler's vision for the short- to medium-run future is perhaps slightly surprising (depending on the reader), and maybe a bit unsettling, but pretty much familiar and therefore essentially convincing. The value of this book is not in the novelty of the broad macro arc of said vision --- which can be summarized by the word "automation" --- but in the not-easily-summarized micro-scale insights developed as the story is fleshed out. Despite being fascinating, the books is flawed (in my opinion) for being insufficiently international in scope.

Epic!

Una ampia e prospera classe media è stata il vanto e la caratteristica principale delle società occidentali evolute. In futuro però potrebbe essere soltanto un ricordo. Secondo l'autore il trend in atto da anni è quello che sta dividendo il mercato del lavoro tra le persone che stanno al vertice e guadagnano ovviamente di più e la maggioranza che sta sul fondo. Vivere nel mezzo è sempre più difficile.Il motivo di questa grande trasformazione è legato alla tecnologia e al suo rapido sviluppo, che privilegia le persone con formazione adeguata, che sono complementari alle macchine intelligenti, e punisce tutti quei lavoratori che sono in competizione con le macchine e il cui lavoro può essere facilmente sostituito. Tra i lavoratori maggiormente penalizzati non ci sono soltanto i lavoratori manuali ma anche i colletti bianchi (la classe media) le cui mansioni possono essere svolte, in modo anche più efficiente dalle macchine e dai programmi informatici.Le previsioni dell’autore sul futuro sono tutt’altro che rosee e a tratti persino “fastidiose” (soprattutto per un europeo minimamente progressista). Talvolta l’impressione è che l’autore si sbilanci persino un po’ troppo nelle previsioni, ma il libro è sicuramente stimolante e offre alcune indicazioni interessanti su dove stiamo andando. Un punto di vista differente rispetto a chi è convinto che il ceto medio possa essere rinvigorito con adeguate politiche redistributive.

In der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung wurden sowohl das Buch als auch der Autor empfohlen. Daher bedurfte es keiner großen Überlegungen, mir dieses Buch zu kaufen. Meine Erwartungen wurden in jeder Hinsicht erfüllt. Die Auseinandersetzung mit den Problemen der Lohnentwicklung, Gewinnern und Verlierern auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und des Wiedererlernens der Bildung/Ausbildung u.v.m. ist auch für den vorgebildeten Laien in verständlicher Form geführt.Wer sich jenseits trockener Statistiken mit brennenden Themen der Wirtschaft beschäftigen möchte, kommt an Tyler Coven nicht vorbei.Dies ist mit ein Grund, mir auch die weiteren bisher von ihm erschienenen Bücher zu kaufen.

This book raises some interesting and valid points about the current progression of technology. I think this a good read for anyone interested in the future of their workplace, however the material is a little dry in places and not an easy read.I found myself having to implement a strange rule to get through this book - if I could see the work "chess" at any point on the page I immediately skipped 2 pages. This may seem odd but you will understand. The author seemed to find an excuse to leap from any subject into a chess-playing robot metaphor which by the 5th time became unbearable. There is apparently a limit to how much chess I can read about because I know real life and the workplace is fundamentally... not chess.

Cowen è un economista, ma le sue considerazioni su muovono su un piano di ampia rielaborazione della stessa materia economica. Sono riflessioni che richiamano scenari ai quali dovremo adattarci e ai quali, soprattutto, dovranno ispirarsi le politiche economiche del futuro prossimo. Ricordano le riflessioni sul futuro di Keynes. A differenza dei catastrofisti, Cowen trasmette una salda positività. Una sana nostalgia del futuro. Nel sue parole il nostro presente: "That's about to change. It is frightening. but it is exciting too." Non a caso nei suoi frequenti collegamenti compaiono Keynes, così come Brynjolfsson e McAfee, Turing e Kahneman. Il futuro che ci presenta Cowen è molto vicino e cambierà le nostre visione del vivere in società. "When it comes to a lot of values issues - and what people really believe in their daily lives - the gap between conservatives and liberals isn't nearly as large as it might first seem."