The theory of innovation cycles was promoted by Joseph Schumpeter (who in 1942 proposed his famous idea of “creative destruction”).
Today, MIT-Economics carries out the exercise of
dividing history into six cycles
; from the first (beginning at the end of the 18th century) to the most recent: the fourth, which occurred between 1950 and 1990 (with milestones such as petrochemistry, electronics and aviation); the fifth, between 1990 and 2010 (digital networks, software and transformations in “new media”);
and the current one, the sixth, driven by the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and technologies for environmental improvement.
Two qualities emerge from what has been mentioned. The first is that each of the six successive cycles has been shorter than the previous one (the first lasted 60 years and the last 25).
The second is that
the impact on economic growth multiplies as time progresses
: WIPO publishes that the estimated average increase in annual per capita income after the Second World War is ten times that estimated for the time before 1820. and it is, at the same time, double that of 1850-1950.
The world is experiencing a multiple revolution. Thomas Friedman says that
we are going through a “Promethean moment”,
because we are not witnessing some very big changes, but now everything is changing at the same time (we could say:
“we do not have to analyze the various changes but it is better to focus on the change of one thing: the whole”)
.
Futurist - and entrepreneur of the new music industry - Gerd Leonard explains that we are going through three movements: digital change, environmental transformation and the purpose revolution (
"Purpose Revolution")
.
What refers (in the most successful societies and also in those that are in upward transition) to a triple change, radical and transversal:
digitalization modified human life
, environmental problems became a determining factor and sociology is mutating because The new generations (and the older ones too) no longer put hard self-commitments looking to the future in their life plans and prefer to improve their present quality of life even giving up “expensive” monetary benefits (the economy has begun to incrementally create non-monetary value ).
This “Prometheus moment” replaces (there is no longer a mere change but a substitution) areas of human action. And it puts old institutions in crisis:
young people acquire more knowledge on networks like YouTube than within the walls of a classroom
, people relate more to their digital contacts than to those they are geographically close to (which not only does not reduce but intensifies). positively emotional ties), the information is planetary and no longer local (which conditions purchasing behaviors, decisions about the use of time or adherence to social or political causes). And, of course, this affects people's participation in the workplace.
The economy has deposited the largest component of value generation in knowledge (intellectual capital).
Something curious is that a lack of the time is that of optimistic leadership. The vertigo is scary. But, like every human process, the current one is made up of “good and bad.”
Well, in labor matters, something significant is happening among those who are ahead of the change. The Economist magazine refers in a recent article titled
“Welcome to a golden age for workers”
that (among other reasons, due to the technological revolution)
the salaries of workers
- and especially of the furthest behind (not only is the unemployment rate reduced, but income is growing) -. He mentions as a contribution David Autor (from MIT) who reports that it is in the US where the improvement process is being led (since 2020, about 2/5 of the income inequality that emerged in the previous four decades has been reversed ). And he points out that a good part of the process (which defies previous negative forecasts) is linked to the current wave of innovation.
Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo (Boston University) point out that we are facing a process that is accelerating: half of the increase in employment between 1980 and 2020 came from the generation of new types of work. Complete with Erik Brynkolfsson to realize that
the emergence of artificial intelligence is allowing the productivity of less qualified workers to be substantially improved, facilitating better income
for them. And an OECD report is cited that says that 80% of the workers measured who have used artificial intelligence improved their benefits, which allowed them to improve their working conditions.
Well, what has been mentioned represents a great challenge for Argentina.
Among us, on the contrary, not only has the social situation degenerated
, but even formal wage earners have fallen below the poverty line (which was a rarity).
We may, then, need to start (someday!) looking further and higher. As long as Argentina does not decide to establish a market economy with a stable and encouraging frame of reference for the (genuine) competitive development of innovative companies that create quality employment, our social sensitivity will be remitted again and again to the very poor exercise of settling for distributing subsidies to the disadvantaged (which is nothing more than recognizing helplessness and compensating those harmed by it). ■