The robot economy and the new rentier class
It seems more top-tier economists are coming around to the idea that robots and technology could be having a greater influence on the economy (and this crisis in particular) than previously appreciated. Paul Krugman being the latest.
But first a quick backgrounder on the debate so far (as tracked by us).
Probably the first high-profile advocate of the idea — in recent times — that “technology and computers were changing the economy in weird ways” was Alan Greenspan in the 1990s, when he attributed a mysterious lack of inflation, high productivity and low unemployment rate to the arrival of a technologically rich “New Economy”.
As we’ve written before, once the tech bubble burst — and Greenspan was supposedly proved so very wrong — the whole idea of technology being a fundamental force in the real economy was abandoned…
Keep reading: The robot economy and the new rentier class | FT Alphaville.
