从工业革命史看技术变迁如何影响工人命运——《技术陷阱:自动化时代的资本、劳动力和权力》评介

How Technical Change Affects Workers’ Destinies in the Lens of Industrial Revolutions History-A review of The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation

《技术陷阱:自动化时代的资本、劳动力和权力》一书以西方国家工业革命史为线索,将各个时期的技术发展与相应的经济、社会状况概括为“大停滞”“大分流”“大调平”“大反转”等阶段。作者认为技术的类型对工人的命运起着关键作用-“劳动力替代型技术”使工人被机器取代、工资收入下降、政治不稳定加剧;“赋能型技术”则促进劳动者的技能提升,工资收入增长,从而促进社会稳定良性发展。作者提出我们应该从历史中学习经验,通过政策的调整来应对当下及未来技术进步带来的挑战。本书为读者详实地展示了历史进程中的技术变迁及其与政治、经济、社会和工人命运的广泛关联,也为当下我们面对人工智能等技术带来的挑战提出可行的应对方案。

The book The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation follows the history of industrial revolutions in western countries, and summarizes technological development and relevant social economic status into various periods: the great stagnation, the great divergence, the great levelling, the great reversal. The author argues that the types of technical change play a vital role in determining workers’ destinies- “labor replacing technologies” replace workers,lead to wage fall, and incite political unrest;while “enabling technologies” improve workers’ skill,promote wage growth, and result in stable development. The author suggests to learn from history and advocates for policy intervention to deal with the challenges of technical progress. The book presents to the readers the technical change in history and its broad relevance to politics, economics, society and workers’ destinies, and also provides feasible solutions to the challenges of new technologies such as AI.