A
few weeks ago, I read Paul Krugman's review of The Rise and Fall
of American Growth by Robert J.
Gordon. I don't know if I will read Gordon's book, but the following
statements in Krugman's review keep returning to me as I think about
how much different my life is than it was for those living a relatively
short time ago.
Robert J. Gordon, a distinguished macroeconomist and economic historian at Northwestern, has been arguing for a long time...[that d]evelopments in information and communication technology... just don’t measure up to past achievements. Specifically..., he has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication....
In “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” Gordon doubles down on that theme, declaring that the kind of rapid economic growth we still consider our due, and expect to continue forever, was in fact a one-time-only event. First came the Great Inventions, almost all dating from the late 19th century. Then came refinement and exploitation of those inventions — a process that took time, and exerted its peak effect on economic growth between 1920 and 1970. Everything since has at best been a faint echo of that great wave, and Gordon doesn’t expect us ever to see anything similar.
Indeed, almost half the book is devoted to changes that took place before World War II....I was fascinated by Gordon’s account of the changes wrought by his Great Inventions. As he says, “Except in the rural South, daily life for every American changed beyond recognition between 1870 and 1940.” Electric lights replaced candles and whale oil, flush toilets replaced outhouses, cars and electric trains replaced horses. (In the 1880s, parts of New York’s financial district were seven feet deep in manure.)This one review has changed how I view the many conveniences that now seem necessities.
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