If only tech solved things like it used to

This has led Autor to conclude that how the benefits of technology are distributed is “to some substantial degree within the control of policy.”

Buchanan agreed, and pointed to a variety of labor market policies that some countries, unlike the U.S., have taken, including policies that make it easier for workers to join unions, create high-paying jobs, and help workers find those jobs.

Exactly what those policies should look like in the U.S. is a matter of debate, he said, “but it’s certainly the debate we should be having.”

Buchanan likened the assumption that technological gains will inevitably increase the quality of life for everyone to trickle-down economic theory, or the belief that economic gains for firms and for the wealthiest members of society will inevitably improve the lot of the rest of society over time. That theory, he said, rests on a similar set of assumptions.

“What we can learn from what’s happening right now in the United States is that the efficient modern economy that is so focused on growth is not giving us the results we need,” he said. “If we step back and acknowledge that, what’s to stop us from revisiting policies that have been foreclosed because we’re stuck in this idea that we need to promote growth at all costs?”

Taking charge of policy decisions

According to the Resolution Foundation’s Plunkett, making the assumption that technological change will always prove a magic elixir “lets us off the hook” in regards to the need to raise living standards through other means. “When you stop assuming that technology will automatically make all of our lives better, you have to think very differently about policy,” he said. “The implications are everywhere. You have to start at the beginning and ask, how do we want society to be and how do we make that happen.”

Plunkett said that the safety net becomes much more important if wages are not increasing at the same rate as the cost of living. “If we have to adjust to this new world where you can’t depend on economic growth to raise living standards, we need to be thinking much more about things like child care and rent regulation to provide workers with security,” he said.

And in the United States, where citizens don’t have guaranteed access to other basic services like health care and higher education, the implications are even broader, Buchanan added.

“As soon as you accept that the gains from technology are not necessarily going to be shared by the whole society,” he said, “you realize that you need to be doing a lot more of the heavy lifting of raising living standards” by adopting new public policy.

It would mean, he said, “a whole new set of options.”