Revisiting Interconnection Between Technological Evolution and The Dynamics of Employment and Income Distribution

Abstract

Technological development has been a continuous process. In fact, this signifies the strength of the process of development. There has been quantitative as well as qualitative changes in the way the human being produces its means of production as well as the means of livelihood. One must say that the development in the means of production (the machines and tools) determines the availability of quality and quantity of means of livelihood. Hence, it may be assumed that the availability of means of livelihood to the common masses should be a direct function of the evolution of the technology of production. But, the benefits of the development of technology spreads among the stakeholders in varying proportions. Distribution of means of livelihood, (income and output) depends on the distribution of ownership of the means of production as well as the number of people and the labor hours utilized in the production process. Distribution of means of production and income and output is a socio-political process. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the world faced changing socio-political structure through constitutional and democratic movements. At various milestones of technological evolution, various provisions determining the quality of life of the workforce like the number of working days and working hours and the disbursement of the reward for production kept changing. Different parts of the world experienced a reduction in the number of working hours and days at various stages under pressure of democratic movements. In light of this, the paper attempts to revisit the impact of the technological evolution, particularly, information technology and artificial intelligence, on the distribution of income and wealth and, also its connection with the growth of employment (or, unemployment). For this it takes a journey through the history since the Industrial Revolution in general and the post-liberalization era (since 1990s) in particular, in view of the qualitative changes in the production process owing to the emergence computer and information technology, robotics and artificial intelligence. The paper finds that there has been a mismatch between the rate of growth of production and the allocation of the output among the stakeholder, particularly the workforce. This has resulted into widening inequality of income along with high rate of unemployment.