Abstract:

Capitalism has some internal tendencies toward cronyism, especially in democracies. These tendencies are likely to be accelerated by the new "platform economy," in which excess capacity and durable goods are commodified by "sharing." Uber commodifies your car, AirBnB commodifies your living space, and software is wiping out service jobs by replacing human workers with kiosks and delivery systems. The global CV19 pandemics is making even those trends much faster and deeper. The likely political responses, such as minimum wages, make the problem worse, not better. How can developed nations begin to address these problems, and how can developing nations use the new technology to achieve saltation (leap-frogging innovation) rather than separation in prosperity and infrastructure?