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"We have a technology that has allowed us to create much more wealth for society," said Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the I.I. Initiative on the Digital Economy. "But there is no economic law that stipulates that these benefits will be distributed fairly – and there is evidence that some people have benefited from most of the benefits and many others have been left behind."
But the economy is not destiny, he said.
"Technology has led to some of this concentration, but as it expands the cake, you could improve everyone's situation at the same time – you could improve the lot of the poor and the rich – and our politics is a matter of politics. " he said.
As Annie Lowrey pointed out in The Atlantic last month, economic policy is currently geared towards people like Mr. Bezos, far more than the hundreds of thousands of people who work in his warehouses. Among other policies, Amazon capitalized on a weak union movement and a low minimum wage, which allowed it to develop by hiring an army of workers for its warehouses.
Amazon said that on average, its full-time warehouse employees earned $ 15 an hour, including salaries and other allowances; The company also said that these workers enjoyed all the benefits, including the acquisition of professional skills. A salary of $ 15 is higher than some other retailers, but it is lower than the estimates of what a family in the United States must do to meet their basic needs, namely a living wage.
"They do not provide the kind of high-paying, middle-class jobs to a wide range of people we associate with business success," said Lawrence Katz, Harvard economist, about Amazon and other high-flying technologies. companies. "We do not see the sharing of productivity benefits that we used to see in the past. And this can be even more serious than the concentration of wealth. "
How was Mr. Bezos able to solve these problems through philanthropy? Mr. Giridharadas suggested several liberal economic policy ideas, including efforts to strengthen unions, equalize the way we pay for education, increase minimum wage laws, and push for a more progressive tax system. . Mr. Gates and Mr. Warren Buffett, the second and richest people in the world, said they should pay higher taxes.
These ideas seem improbable to me; Bezos is a savvy innovator, but he has shown little interest in short-term political issues.
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