Simon Johnson > Quotes

“in modern societies it is the power to persuade—even more so than economic, political, and coercion powers—that is critical”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“in the modern world the power to persuade is the most important source of social power. But with such persuasiveness, you tend to convince yourself that you are correct, and you become less sensitive to others’ wishes, interests, and plights.”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“More fundamentally, productivity gains from automation may always be somewhat limited, especially compared to the introduction of new products and tasks that transform the production process, such as those in the early Ford factories. Automation is about substituting cheaper machines or algorithms for human labor, and reducing production costs by 10 or even 20 percent in a few tasks will have relatively small consequences for TFP or the efficiency of the production process. In contrast, introducing new technologies, such as electrification, novel designs, or new production tasks, has been at the root of transformative TFP gains throughout much of the twentieth century.”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“For anyone who believes that the productivity benefits necessarily trickle down through society and improve wages and working conditions, these formative episodes are hard to explain. But once you recognize that technology’s advances look after the interests of those who are powerful and whose vision guides its trajectory, everything makes a lot more sense.”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“How technology is used is always intertwined with the vision and interests of those who hold power.”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“when human rights are weak or nonexistent as in medieval Europe or on southern plantations, improving technology can easily lead to more intense exploitation of labor.”
― Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

“1980s. As it turned out, the Garn–St. Germain Act, by allowing S&Ls to expand into new businesses, prompted many of them to gamble on high-risk investments. S&Ls lacked experience in these businesses, as did their regulators, and over 2,000 banks failed between 1985 and 1992, with a peak of 534 in 1989. (By comparison, only seventy-nine banks failed during all of the 1970s.)63 Ultimately, over one thousand people were indicted and thrifts suspected of fraud cost the government over $54 billion.*64”
― Simon Johnson, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown