technology and its effects on modern america assignment

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16.6 Mass Media, New Technology, and the Public

Learning objectives.

• Explain the technology diffusion model.
• Identify technological failures over the past decade.
• Describe the relationship between mass media and new technology.

When the iPad went on sale in the United States in April 2010, 36-year-old graphic designer Josh Klenert described the device as “ridiculously expensive [and] way overpriced (Guglielmo, 2010).” The cost of the new technology, however, did not deter Klenert from purchasing an iPad; he preordered the tablet computer as soon as it was available and ventured down to Apple’s SoHo store in New York on opening weekend to be one of the first to buy it. Klenert, and everyone else who stood in line at the Apple store during the initial launch of the iPad, is described by sociologists as an early adopter: a tech-loving pioneer who is among the first to embrace new technology as soon as it arrives on the market. What causes a person to be an early adopter or a late adopter? What are the benefits of each? In this section you will read about the cycle of technology and how it is diffused in a society. The process and factors influencing the diffusion of new technology is often discussed in the context of a diffusion model known as the technology adoption life cycle .

Diffusion of Technology: The Technology Adoption Life Cycle

Figure 16.7

Like other cultural shifts, technological advances follow a fairly standard diffusion model.

The technology adoption life cycle was originally observed during the technology diffusion studies of rural sociologists during the 1950s. University researchers George Beal, Joe Bohlen, and Everett Rogers were looking at the adoption rate of hybrid seed among Iowa farmers in an attempt to draw conclusions about how farmers accept new ideas. They discovered that the process of adoption over time fit a normal growth curve pattern—there was a slow gradual rate of adoption, then quite a rapid rate of adoption, followed by a leveling off of the adoption rate. Personal and social characteristics influenced when farmers adopted the use of hybrid seed corn; younger, better-educated farmers tended to adapt to the new technology almost as soon as it became available, whereas older, less-educated farmers waited until most other farms were using hybrid seed before they adopted the process, or they resisted change altogether.

In 1962, Rogers generalized the technology diffusion model in his book Diffusion of Innovations , using the farming research to draw conclusions about the spread of new ideas and technology. Like his fellow farming model researchers, Rogers recognizes five categories of participants: innovators , who tend to be experimentalists and are interested in the technology itself; early adopters such as Josh Klenert, who are technically sophisticated and are interested in using the technology for solving professional and academic problems; early majority , who constitute the first part of the mainstream, bringing the new technology into common use; late majority , who are less comfortable with the technology and may be skeptical about its benefits; and laggards , who are resistant to the new technology and may be critical of its use by others (Rogers, 1995).

When new technology is successfully released in the market, it follows the technology adoption life cycle shown in Figure 16.7 . Innovators and early adopters, attracted by something new, want to be the first to possess the innovation, sometimes even before discovering potential uses for it, and are unconcerned with the price. When the iPad hit stores in April 2010, 120,000 units were sold on the first day, primarily as a result of presales (Oliver, 2010). Sales dropped on days 2 and 3, suggesting that demand for the device dipped slightly after the initial first-day excitement. Within the first month, Apple had sold 1,000,000 iPads, exceeding industry expectations (Goldman, 2010). However, many mainstream consumers (the early majority) are waiting to find out just how popular the device will become before making a purchase. Research carried out in the United Kingdom suggests that many consumers are uncertain how the iPad will fit into their lives—the survey drew comments such as “Everything it does I can do on my PC or my phone right now” and “It’s just a big iPod Touch…a big iPhone without the phone (O’Hear, 2010).” The report, by research group Simpson Carpenter, concludes that most consumers are “unable to find enough rational argument to justify taking the plunge (O’Hear, 2010).”

However, as with previous technological advances, the early adopters who have jumped on the iPad bandwagon may ultimately validate its potential, helping mainstream users make sense of the device and its uses. Forrester Research notes that much of the equipment acquired by early adopters—laptops, MP3 players, digital cameras, broadband Internet access at home, and mobile phones—is shifting into the mainstream. Analyst Jacqueline Anderson, who works for Forrester, said, “There’s really no group out of the tech loop. America is becoming a digital nation. Technology adoption continues to roll along, picking up more and more mainstream consumers every year (Wortham, 2009).” To cite just one example, in 2008 nearly 10 million American households added HDTV, an increase of 27 percent over the previous year (Wortham, 2009). By the time most technology reaches mainstream consumers, it is more established, more user-friendly, and cheaper than earlier versions or prototypes. In June 2010, Amazon.com slashed the price of its Kindle e-reader from $259 to $189 in response to competition from Barnes & Noble’s Nook (Bartash, 2010). Companies frequently reduce the price of technological devices once the initial novelty wears off, as a result of competition from other manufacturers or as a strategy to retain market share.

Although many people ultimately adapt to new technology, some are extremely resistant or unwilling to change at all. When Netscape web browser user John Uribe was repeatedly urged by a message from parent company AOL to switch to one of Netscape’s successors, Firefox or Flock, he ignored the suggestions. Despite being informed that AOL would stop providing support for the web browser service in March 2008, Uribe continued to use it. “It’s kind of irrational,” Mr. Uribe said. “It worked for me, so I stuck with it. Until there is really some reason to totally abandon it, I won’t (Helft, 2008).”Uribe is a self-confessed late adopter—he still uses dial-up Internet service and is happy to carry on using his aging Dell computer with its small amount of memory. Members of the late majority make up a large percentage of the U.S. population—a 2010 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau found that despite the technology’s widespread availability, 40 percent of households across the United States have no high-speed or broadband Internet connection, while 30 percent have no Internet at all (Whitney, 2010). Of 32.1 million households in urban areas, the most common reason for not having high-speed Internet was a lack of interest or a lack of need for the technology (Whitney, 2010).

Figure 16.8

The most common reason that people in both rural and urban areas do not have high-speed Internet is a lack of interest in the technology.

Experts claim that, rather than slowing down the progression of new technological developments, laggards in the technology adoption life cycle may help to control the development of new technology. Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster, said, “Laggards have a bad rap, but they are crucial in pacing the nature of change. Innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works. If this was a world in which only early adopters got to choose, we’d all be using CB radios and quadraphonic stereo.” 1 He added that aspects of the laggard and early adopter coexist in most people. For example, many consumers buy the latest digital camera and end up using just a fraction of its functions. Technological laggards may be the reason that not every new technology becomes a mainstream trend (see sidebar).

Not Consumer-Approved: Technological Flops

Have you ever heard of the Apple Newton? How about Microsoft Bob? Or DIVX? For most people, the names probably mean very little because these were all flash-in-the-pan technologies that never caught on with mainstream consumers.

The Apple Newton was an early PDA, officially known as the MessagePad. Introduced by Apple in 1993, the Newton contained many of the features now popularized by modern smartphones, including personal information management and add-on storage slots. Despite clever advertising and relentless word-of-mouth campaigns, the Newton failed to achieve anything like the popularity enjoyed by most Apple products. Hampered by its large size compared to more recent equivalents (such as the PalmPilot) and its cost—basic models cost around $700, with more advanced models costing up to $1,000—the Newton was also ridiculed by talk show comedians and cartoonists because of the supposed inaccuracy of its handwriting-recognition function. By 1998, the Newton was no more. A prime example of an idea that was ahead of its time, the Newton was the forerunner to the smaller, cheaper, and more successful PalmPilot, which in turn paved the way for every successive mobile Internet device.

Even less successful in the late 1990s was DIVX, an attempt by electronics retailer Circuit City to create an alternative to video rental. Customers could rent movies on disposable DIVX discs that they could keep and watch for 2 days. They then had the choice of throwing away or recycling the disc or paying a continuation fee to keep watching it. Viewers who wanted to watch a disc an unlimited amount of times could pay to convert it into a “DIVX silver” disc for an additional fee. Launched in 1998, the DIVX system was promoted as an alternative to traditional rental systems with the promise of no returns and no late fees. However, its introduction coincided with the release of DVD technology, which was gaining traction over the DIVX format. Consumers feared that the choice between DIVX and DVD might turn into another Betamax versus VHS debacle, and by 1999 the technology was all but obsolete. The failure of DIVX cost Circuit City a reported $114,000,000 and left early enthusiasts of the scheme with worthless DIVX equipment (although vendors offered a $100 refund for people who bought a DIVX player) (Mokey, 2009).

Another catastrophic failure in the world of technology was Microsoft Bob, a mid-1990s attempt to provide a new, nontechnical interface to desktop computing operations. Bob, represented by a logo with a yellow smiley face that filled the o in its name, was supposed to make Windows more palatable to nontechnical users. With a cartoon-like interface that was meant to resemble the inside of a house, Bob helped users navigate their way around the desktop by having them click on objects in each room. Microsoft expected sales of Bob to skyrocket and held a big advertising campaign to celebrate its 1995 launch. Instead, the product failed dismally because of its high initial sale price, demanding hardware requirements, and tendency to patronize users. When Windows 95 was launched the same year, its new Windows Explorer interface required far less dumbing down than previous versions, and Microsoft Bob became irrelevant.

Technological failures such as the Apple Newton, DIVX, and Microsoft Bob prove that sometimes it is better to be a mainstream adopter than to jump on the new-product bandwagon before the technology has been fully tried and tested.

Mass Media Outlets and New Technology

As new technology reaches the shelves and the number of early majority consumers rushing to purchase it increases, mass media outlets are forced to adapt to the new medium. When the iPad’s popularity continued to grow throughout 2010 (selling 3,000,000 units within 3 months of its launch date), traditional newspapers, magazines, and TV networks rushed to form partnerships with Apple, launching applications for the tablet so that consumers could directly access their content. Unconstrained by the limited amount of space available in a physical newspaper or magazine, publications such as The New York Times and USA Today are able to include more detailed reporting than they can fit in their traditional paper, as well as interactive features such as crossword puzzles and the use of video and sound. “Our iPad App is designed to take full advantage of the evolving capabilities offered by the Internet,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times . “We see our role on the iPad as being similar to our traditional print role—to act as a thoughtful, unbiased filter and to provide our customers with information they need and can trust (Brett, 2010).”

Because of Apple’s decision to ban Flash (the dominant software for online video viewing) from the iPad, some traditional TV networks have been converting their video files to HTML5 in order to enable full TV episodes to be screened on the device. CBS and Disney were among the first networks to offer free TV content on the iPad in 2010 through the iPad’s built-in web browser, while ABC streamed its shows via an iPad application. The iPad has even managed to revive forms of traditional media that had been discontinued; in June 2010, Condé Nast announced the restoration of Gourmet magazine as an iPad application called Gourmet Live. As more media content becomes available on new technology such as the iPad, the iPod, and the various e-readers available on the market, it appeals to a broader range of consumers, becoming a self-perpetuating model.

Key Takeaways

• The technology adoption life cycle offers a diffusion model of how people accept new ideas and new technology. The model recognizes five categories of participants: innovators, who tend to be experimentalists and are interested in the technology itself; early adopters, who are technically sophisticated and are interested in using the technology for solving professional and academic problems; early majority, who constitute the first part of the mainstream, bringing the new technology into common use; late majority, who are less comfortable with the technology and may be skeptical about its benefits; and laggards, who are resistant to the new technology and may be critical of its use by others.
• When new technology is released in the market, it follows the technology adoption life cycle. Innovators and early adopters want to be the first to own the technology and are unconcerned about the cost, whereas mainstream consumers wait to find out how popular or successful the technology will become before buying it. As the technology filters into the mainstream, it becomes cheaper and more user-friendly. Some people remain resistant to new technology, however, which helps to control its development. Technological flops such as Microsoft Bob and DIVX result from skeptical late adopters or laggards refusing to purchase innovations that appear unlikely to become commercially successful.
• As new technology transitions into the mainstream, traditional media outlets have to adapt to the new technology to reach consumers. Recent examples include the development of traditional media applications for the iPad, such as newspaper, magazine, and TV network apps.

Choose a technological innovation from the past 50 years and research its diffusion into the mass market. Then respond to the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.

• Does it fit the technology diffusion model?
• How quickly did the technology reach the mass market? In what ways did mass media aid the spread of this technology?
• Research similar inventions that never caught on. Why do you think this technology succeeded when so many others failed?

End-of-Chapter Assessment

Review Questions

• What are the main types of traditional media, and what factors influenced their development?
• What are the main types of new media and what factors influenced their development?
• Why are new media often more successful than traditional media?
• What were the main types of media used at the beginning of the 20th century?
• What factors led to the rise of a national mass culture?
• How has the Internet affected media delivery?
• What are the main information delivery methods in modern media?
• Why has the Internet become a primary source of news and information?
• What are the main advantages of modern media delivery methods?
• What are the main disadvantages of modern media delivery methods?
• What factors influenced the development of the print industry? What factors contributed to its decline?
• How has the Internet affected the print industry?
• What is likely to happen to the print industry in the future? How is print media transitioning into the digital age?
• What are the current trends in social networking?
• How is the Internet becoming more exclusive?
• What are the effects of smartphone applications on modern media?
• What effects did the USA PATRIOT Act have on privacy in the United States?
• What are some of the consequences of social networking sites in terms of privacy and employment?
• How are some websites attempting to restore privacy?
• What is the technology adoption life cycle and how does it relate to new media?
• How do mass-media outlets respond to new technology?

Critical Thinking Questions

• Is there a future for traditional media, or will it be consumed by digital technology?
• Do employers have the right to use social networking sites as a method of selecting future employees? Are employees entitled to voice their opinion on the Internet even if it damages their company’s reputation?
• Did the USA PATRIOT Act make the country a safer place, or did it violate privacy laws and undermine civil liberties?
• One of the disadvantages of modern media delivery is the lack of reliability of information on the Internet. Do you think online journalism (including blogging) will ultimately become a respected source of information, or will people continue to rely on traditional news media?
• Will a pay-for-content model work for online newspapers and magazines, or have consumers become too used to receiving their news for free?

Career Connection

As a result of rapid change in the digital age, careers in media are constantly shifting, and many people who work in the industry face an uncertain future. However, the Internet (and all the various technologies associated with it) has created numerous opportunities in the media field. Take a look at the following website and scroll down to the “Digital” section: http://www.getdegrees.com/articles/career-resources/top-60-jobs-that-will-rock-the-future/

The website lists several media careers that are on the rise, including the following:

• Media search consultant
• Interface designer
• Cloud computing engineer
• Integrated digital media specialist
• Casual game developer
• Mobile application developer

Read through the description of each career, including the links within each description. Choose one career that you are interested in pursuing, research the skills and qualifications it requires, and then write a one-page paper on what you found. Here are some other helpful websites you might like to use in your research:

• Digital Jobs of the Future: Integrated Digital Media Specialist: http://www.s2m.com.au/news/2009/11/26/digital-jobs-of-the-future-integrated-digital-media-specialist/?403
• Cloud Computing Jobs: http://cloudczar.com/
• Top Careers for College Graduates: Casual Game Development: http://www.examiner.com/x-11055-San-Diego-College-Life-Examiner~y2009m5d27-Top-careers-for-college-graduates-Casual -Game-Development
• How to Become a Mobile Application Developer: http://www.ehow.com/how_5638517_become-mobile-application-developer.html
• Mobile App Development: So Many Choices, So Few Guarantees: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/70128.html?wlc=1277823391
• 20 Websites to Help You Master User Interface Design: http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/20-websites-to-help-you-master-user-interface-design/

1 Helft, “Tech’s Late Adapters.”

Bartash, Jeffry. “Amazon Drops Kindle Price to $189,” MarketWatch , June 21, 2010, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-drops-kindle-price-to-189-2010-06-21 .

Brett, Andy. “The New York Times Introduces an iPad App,” TechCrunch , April 1, 2010, http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/new-york-times-ipad/ .

Goldman, Jim. “Apple Sells 1 Million iPads,” CNBC , May 3, 2010, http://www.cnbc.com/id/36911690/Apple_Sells_1_Million_iPads .

Guglielmo, Connie. “Apple IPad’s Debut Weekend Sales May Be Surpassing Estimates,” Businessweek , April 4, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-04/apple-ipad-s-debut-weekend-sales-may-be-surpassing-estimates.html .

Helft, Miguel. “Tech’s Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True,” New York Times , March 12, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/technology/12inertia.html .

Mokey, Nick. “Tech We Regret,” Digital Trends , March 18, 2009, http://www.digitaltrends.com/how-to/tech-we-regret/ .

O’Hear, Steve. “Report: The iPad Won’t Go Mass Market Anytime Soon,” TechCrunch , May 12, 2010, http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/report-the-ipad-wont-go-mass-market-anytime-soon/ .

Oliver, Sam. “Preorders for Apple iPad Slow After 120K First-Day Rush,” Apple Insider , March 15, 2010, http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/15/preorders_for_apple_ipad_slow_after_120k_first_day_rush.html .

Rogers, Everett M. Diffusion of Innovations , 4th ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1995).

Whitney, Lance. “Survey: 40 Percent in U.S. Have No Broadband,” CNET , February 16, 2010, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10454133-94.html .

Wortham, Jenna. “The Race to Be an Early Adopter of Technologies Goes Mainstream, a Survey Finds,” New York Times , September 1, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/technology/02survey.html .

Understanding Media and Culture Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

How has technology changed - and changed us - in the past 20 years?

Remember this? Image:  REUTERS/Stephen Hird

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Stay up to date:, technological transformation.

• Since the dotcom bubble burst back in 2000, technology has radically transformed our societies and our daily lives.
• From smartphones to social media and healthcare, here's a brief history of the 21st century's technological revolution.

Just over 20 years ago, the dotcom bubble burst , causing the stocks of many tech firms to tumble. Some companies, like Amazon, quickly recovered their value – but many others were left in ruins. In the two decades since this crash, technology has advanced in many ways.

Many more people are online today than they were at the start of the millennium. Looking at broadband access, in 2000, just half of Americans had broadband access at home. Today, that number sits at more than 90% .

This broadband expansion was certainly not just an American phenomenon. Similar growth can be seen on a global scale; while less than 7% of the world was online in 2000, today over half the global population has access to the internet.

Similar trends can be seen in cellphone use. At the start of the 2000s, there were 740 million cell phone subscriptions worldwide. Two decades later, that number has surpassed 8 billion, meaning there are now more cellphones in the world than people

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The future of jobs report 2023, how to follow the growth summit 2023.

At the same time, technology was also becoming more personal and portable. Apple sold its first iPod in 2001, and six years later it introduced the iPhone, which ushered in a new era of personal technology. These changes led to a world in which technology touches nearly everything we do.

Technology has changed major sectors over the past 20 years, including media, climate action and healthcare. The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers , which just celebrated its 20th anniversary, gives us insight how emerging tech leaders have influenced and responded to these changes.

Media and media consumption

The past 20 years have greatly shaped how and where we consume media. In the early 2000s, many tech firms were still focused on expanding communication for work through advanced bandwidth for video streaming and other media consumption that is common today.

Others followed the path of expanding media options beyond traditional outlets. Early Tech Pioneers such as PlanetOut did this by providing an outlet and alternative media source for LGBTQIA communities as more people got online.

Following on from these first new media options, new communities and alternative media came the massive growth of social media. In 2004 , fewer than 1 million people were on Myspace; Facebook had not even launched. By 2018, Facebook had more 2.26 billion users with other sites also growing to hundreds of millions of users.

While these new online communities and communication channels have offered great spaces for alternative voices, their increased use has also brought issues of increased disinformation and polarization.

Today, many tech start-ups are focused on preserving these online media spaces while also mitigating the disinformation which can come with them. Recently, some Tech Pioneers have also approached this issue, including TruePic – which focuses on photo identification – and Two Hat , which is developing AI-powered content moderation for social media.

Climate change and green tech

Many scientists today are looking to technology to lead us towards a carbon-neutral world. Though renewed attention is being given to climate change today, these efforts to find a solution through technology is not new. In 2001, green tech offered a new investment opportunity for tech investors after the crash, leading to a boom of investing in renewable energy start-ups including Bloom Energy , a Technology Pioneer in 2010.

In the past two decades, tech start-ups have only expanded their climate focus. Many today are focuses on initiatives far beyond clean energy to slow the impact of climate change.

Different start-ups, including Carbon Engineering and Climeworks from this year’s Technology Pioneers, have started to roll out carbon capture technology. These technologies remove CO2 from the air directly, enabling scientists to alleviate some of the damage from fossil fuels which have already been burned.

Another expanding area for young tech firms today is food systems innovation. Many firms, like Aleph Farms and Air Protein, are creating innovative meat and dairy alternatives that are much greener than their traditional counterparts.

Biotech and healthcare

The early 2000s also saw the culmination of a biotech boom that had started in the mid-1990s. Many firms focused on advancing biotechnologies through enhanced tech research.

An early Technology Pioneer, Actelion Pharmaceuticals was one of these companies. Actelion’s tech researched the single layer of cells separating every blood vessel from the blood stream. Like many other biotech firms at the time, their focus was on precise disease and treatment research.

While many tech firms today still focus on disease and treatment research, many others have been focusing on healthcare delivery. Telehealth has been on the rise in recent years , with many young tech expanding virtual healthcare options. New technologies such as virtual visits, chatbots are being used to delivery healthcare to individuals, especially during Covid-19.

Many companies are also focusing their healthcare tech on patients, rather than doctors. For example Ada, a symptom checker app, used to be designed for doctor’s use but has now shifted its language and interface to prioritize giving patients information on their symptoms. Other companies, like 7 cups, are focused are offering mental healthcare support directly to their users without through their app instead of going through existing offices.

The past two decades have seen healthcare tech get much more personal and use tech for care delivery, not just advancing medical research.

The World Economic Forum was the first to draw the world’s attention to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current period of unprecedented change driven by rapid technological advances. Policies, norms and regulations have not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation, creating a growing need to fill this gap.

The Forum established the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network in 2017 to ensure that new and emerging technologies will help—not harm—humanity in the future. Headquartered in San Francisco, the network launched centres in China, India and Japan in 2018 and is rapidly establishing locally-run Affiliate Centres in many countries around the world.

The global network is working closely with partners from government, business, academia and civil society to co-design and pilot agile frameworks for governing new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) , autonomous vehicles , blockchain , data policy , digital trade , drones , internet of things (IoT) , precision medicine and environmental innovations .

Learn more about the groundbreaking work that the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network is doing to prepare us for the future.

Want to help us shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Contact us to find out how you can become a member or partner.

In the early 2000s, many companies were at the start of their recovery from the bursting dotcom bubble. Since then, we’ve seen a large expansion in the way tech innovators approach areas such as new media, climate change, healthcare delivery and more.

At the same time, we have also seen tech companies rise to the occasion of trying to combat issues which arose from the first group such as internet content moderation, expanding climate change solutions.

The Technology Pioneers' 2020 cohort marks the 20th anniversary of this community - and looking at the latest awardees can give us a snapshot of where the next two decades of tech may be heading.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Technology and the future of growth: Challenges of change

Subscribe to global connection, zia qureshi zia qureshi senior fellow - global economy and development.

February 25, 2020

This blog is part of a project  exploring how the agenda for economic growth is being reshaped by forces of change, particularly technological change.

Economic growth has been lackluster for more than a decade now. This has occurred at a time when economies have faced much unfolding change. What are the forces of change, how are they affecting the growth dynamics, and what are the implications for policy? A recently published book, “ Growth in a Time of Change, ” addresses these questions.

Three basic ingredients drive economic growth—productivity, capital, and labor. All three are facing new challenges in a changing context. Foremost among the drivers of change has been technology, spearheaded by digital transformation.

Slowdown in productivity and investment

Productivity is the main long-term propeller of economic growth. Technology-enabled innovation is the major spur to productivity growth. Yet, paradoxically, productivity growth has slowed as digital technologies have boomed. Among advanced economies over the past 15 years or so, it has averaged less than half of the pace of the previous 15 years. Firms at the technological frontier have reaped major productivity gains, but the impact on productivity more widely across firms has been weak. The new technologies have tended to produce winners-take-most outcomes. Dominant firms have acquired more market power, market structures have become less competitive, and business dynamism has declined.

Investment also has been weak in most major economies. The persistent weakness of investment despite historically low interest rates has prompted concerns about the risk of “secular stagnation.” Weak productivity growth and investment have reinforced each other and are linked by similar shifts in market structures and dynamics.

Shifts in labor markets

Technology is having profound effects on labor markets. Automation and digital advances are shifting labor demand away from routine low- to middle-level skills to higher-level and more sophisticated analytical, technical, and managerial skills. On the supply side, however, equipping workers with skills that complement the new technologies has lagged, hindering the broader diffusion of innovation within economies. Education and training have been losing the race with technology.

Most major economies face the challenge of aging populations. Many of them are also seeing a leveling off of gains in labor force participation rates and basic education attainments of the population. These trends put an even greater focus on productivity—and technological innovations that drive it—to deliver economic growth.

Rising inequality

Growth has also become less inclusive. Income inequality has been rising in most major economies, and the increase has been particularly pronounced in some of them, such as the United States. The new technologies favoring capital and higher-level skills have contributed to a decline in labor’s share of income and to increased wage inequality. They have also been associated with more concentrated industry structures and high economic rents enjoyed by dominant firms. Income has shifted from labor to capital and the distribution of both labor and capital income has become more unequal.

Rising inequality and mounting anxiety about jobs have contributed to increased social tensions and political divisiveness. Populism has surged in many countries. Nationalist and protectionist sentiment has been on the rise, with a backlash against international trade that, alongside technological change, is seen to have increased inequality with job losses and wage stagnation for low-skilled workers.

Changing growth pathways

While income inequality has been rising within many countries, inequality between countries has been falling as faster-growing emerging economies narrow the income gap with advanced economies. Technology poses new challenges for this economic convergence. Manufacturing-led growth in emerging economies has been the dominant driver of convergence, fueled by their comparative advantage in labor-intensive production based on their large pools of low-skill, low-wage workers. Such comparative advantage is eroding with automation of low-skill work, creating the need to develop alternative pathways to growth aligned with technological change.

AI, robotics, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Technological change reshaping growth will only intensify as artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and cyber-physical systems take the digital revolution to another level. We may be on the cusp of what has been termed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).” And globalization is going increasingly digital, a transformation that, analogous to 4IR, has been termed “Globalization 4.0.”

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Technological change recently has not delivered its full potential in boosting productivity and economic growth. It has pushed income inequality higher and generated fears about a “robocalypse”—massive job losses from automation. This should not cause despair, however.

Advances in digital technologies hold considerable potential to lift the trajectory of productivity and economic growth, and to create new and better jobs to replace old ones. As much as two-thirds of potential productivity growth in major economies over the next decade could be related to the new digital technologies. But technological change is inherently disruptive and entails difficult transitions. It also inevitably creates winners and losers—as does globalization. Policies have a crucial role to play. Unfortunately, they have been slow to adapt to the challenges of change. With improved and more responsive policies, better outcomes are possible.

An agenda to harness the potential of new technology

The core of the forward policy agenda is to better harness the potential of the new technologies. Reforms must seek to improve the enabling environment for firms and workers—to broaden access to opportunities that come from technological change and to enhance capabilities to adjust to the new challenges.

• Policies and institutions governing markets must keep pace as technological change transforms the world of business. Competition policies should be revamped for the digital age to ensure that markets continue to provide an open and level playing field for firms, keep competition strong, and check the growth of monopolistic structures. New regulatory issues revolving around data, the lifeblood of the digital economy, must be addressed. Flexibility in markets will be key to facilitating adjustments to disruptions and structural shifts from digital transformation.
• The innovation ecosystem should keep pushing the technological frontier but also foster wider economic impacts from the new advances. With the intangible asset of knowledge becoming an increasingly important driver of economic success, research and development systems and patent regimes should be improved to promote broader diffusion of technologies embodying new knowledge.
• The foundation of digital infrastructure and digital literacy must be strengthened. The digital divide is narrowing but wide gaps remain.
• Investment in education and training must be boosted and reoriented to emphasize the skills for the jobs of the future. With the old career path of “learn-work-retire” giving way to one of continuous learning, programs for worker upskilling and reskilling and lifelong learning must the scaled up. The key to winning the race with technology is not to compete against machines but to compete with machines.
• Labor market policies should become more forward-looking, shifting the focus from seeking to protect existing jobs to improving workers’ ability to change jobs. Social protection systems, traditionally based on formal long-term employer-employee relationships, should be adapted to a more dynamic job market. Social contracts need to realign with the changing nature of work.
• Tax systems should be reviewed in light of the new tax challenges of the digital economy, including the implications of the transformations occurring in business and work and the new income distribution dynamics. The potential tax reform agenda spans taxes on labor, capital, and wealth.

Reforms are needed at the international level as well, although the dominant part of the agenda to make technology—and globalization—work better and for all rests with policies at the national level. Not only must past gains in establishing a rules-based international trading system be shielded from protectionist headwinds, but new disciplines must be devised for the next phase of globalization led by digital flows to ensure open access and fair competition. Sensible policies on migration can complement national policies, such as pension reform and lifelong learning, in mitigating the effects of population aging.

The era of smart machines holds much promise. With smart policies, the future could be one of stronger and more inclusive growth.

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Primary Source Guides

Becoming Modern: America in the 1920s

• Examines the 1920s in comparison to the preceding and succeeding decades, highlighting four characteristics that distinguish it.
• Discusses the benefits and limitations of taking a snapshot view of a historical period.
• Suggests research methods to test hypotheses about the decade.
• Delves into how modernity was defined in the 1920s, both on a national and personal level.
• Explores the aspects of modernity that were embraced, resisted, or overlooked during the decade
• Examines how social and political divisions of the time were reflected in debates about modernity.
• Explores how innovations of the “machine age” transformed American life in the 1920s.
• Examines the perspectives of both proponents and critics of these changes, including artists.
• Considers the long-term effects predicted from these innovations.
• Draws parallels between the 1920s discussions on technological innovation and social change and similar discussions in the 21st century.
• Explores the factors that contributed to or hindered the unprecedented prosperity of the 1920s.
• Discusses how “prosperity” became a source of national pride and was adapted to suit various political and psychological aspirations.
• Examines the role of workingmen and labor unions in the economic landscape and compares the economic cycles of the 1920s to those before and after the decade.
• Investigates the social divisions of the 1920s, examining the factors that led to these divisions and how they were influenced by postwar adjustments and the concept of the “modern age.”
• Identifies common issues that overlapped multiple social divisions and traces the evolution of these issues into the 1930s as the nation faced the Great Depression.

This educational resource provides a comprehensive exploration of the 1920s in America, highlighting key themes, questions, and historical contexts to better understand this pivotal decade in American history.

• John F. Kasson (NHC Fellow, 1980–81; 2009–10)
• Sean McCann (NHC Fellow, 2001–02)
• Karen Lucic (Professor of Art, Vassar College)

History / American History / The Twenties / Modernism / United States of America /

Next Steps for Ensuring America’s Advanced Technology Preeminence

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As technology and industry strategy experts, we commend Congress and the Biden administration for focusing on ensuring U.S. advanced technology competitiveness. Toward that end, we offer a number of recommendations for further action.

America, We Have a Problem

Key national objectives, policies to advance these objectives.

By a number of metrics—including its dropping position in international innovation ranking systems, its growing trade imbalance in high-tech industries, its decline in real manufacturing value-added output, and in the weaknesses of its defense industrial base—the United States has clearly seen its technological leadership in both innovation and production erode.

It is critical that the United States maintain its preeminence in technological innovation and production, particularly against a surging and adversarial China, because it enables national power (both soft and hard), as well as a thriving economy and good middle-class jobs.

In order to compete in a world in which Chinese economic and technology advancements threaten to displace U.S. leadership, the federal government must put in place and fully fund a national advanced technology strategy. Without such a strategy, the United States will in all likelihood continue to lose market share in a host of advanced industries—including aerospace, computing and communications, Internet services, life sciences, materials, semiconductors, and vehicles—with negative implications for innovation, national security, and living standards.

This requires updating antiquated economic thinking, especially thinking that holds that laissez-fare markets (which China does not embrace) are enough. This “black box” view of technology and its applications might have worked 50 years ago, when innovation industries represented a smaller part of the U.S. economy—and when the Chinese economy was backward. But today, holding on to the market-only view makes it more difficult to advance the kinds of policies needed to effectively help American innovators and producers outcompete economic systems in which “innovation mercantilism” on the one hand and strong and legitimate industrial strategies on the other make it harder for companies in America to compete.

As such, it is time for Congress and the Biden administration to embrace bold ideas and proposals focused on supporting advanced technology research, development, and production in America.

There are three major national objectives for an advanced industry and technology policy.

1. Support the Creation of Breakthrough Technologies and Encourage Their Commercialization and Production in the United States

There are a set of existing and emerging advanced technologies that are key to U.S. economic success and national security. There have been several lists of these technologies, such as the ten listed in the Endless Frontier Act. While experts may quibble about whether one or two might be added or subtracted from various lists, there is general agreement on the most important technologies for the nation’s future.

When we say “support the creation of these technologies,” we mean not just their initial creation in the laboratory but also to extend their development along the technology readiness level (TRL) index from around TRL 3 (proof of concept) to at least TRL 7 (system prototype). Equally important is the development and commercialization of advanced process technologies that enable these technologies to be cost-effectively produced in the high labor-cost environment of the United States. These involve moving new technologies up the equally crucial manufacturing readiness level (MRL) index, from MRL 3 to at least MRL 7, if not to MRL 8. Improvements in measurement technology are also important. [1]

Support for these technologies can and usually should entail both “supply-side” policies (for example, through programs such as DARPA, ARPA-E, Manufacturing USA Centers, NSF’s industry-university centers, and NASA programs (such as its E3 program for cleaner jet engines), as well as “demand-side” policies (for example, through procurement, such as supporting the upgrading of the electrical grid and investing in smart city applications). [2] Special attention must be given to policies that link supply and demand together, to bring technologies through the “valley of death,” and to allow innovators to sustain development efforts by earning sufficient returns on early investments to advance up the learning curve and fund further improvements in product development and advanced production processes.

2. Support Companies in Key Advanced Technology Industries

U.S. competition with other nations, especially China, is won or lost based on what companies in America do. That includes companies headquartered in America and in allied nations (with a focus on the latter’s production in America); existing companies and start-ups; and firms of all sizes. It also includes firms in key industries such as aerospace, biopharmaceuticals, computers and electronics (including semiconductors), electrical equipment, machinery, software, and transportation. Early adopters of key technologies—so-called “lead users”—are also crucial (and can include public sector organizations as well as firms). This should by no means entail targeting particular firms for assistance; the government generally cannot know enough to do this effectively. But it does mean targeting broad sectors, for assistance, such as advanced semiconductor manufacturing and packaging.

3. Support the Development of Additional Regions of Innovation

In order to expand overall U.S. economic opportunity and international technology competitiveness, it is important that the number of regions capable of successfully attracting and growing high-tech innovators (both entrepreneurs and branches of existing companies), such that high-tech wealth and jobs are not concentrated in just a few regions, also expands. Over the last half century, advanced technology innovation has become concentrated in only a few places (mostly on the coasts), which has not only meant dramatically increased costs of doing business in these successful hubs but weaker innovation systems in the rest of the nation, as the successful hubs have drawn in talent. Policies directed at certain metropolitan areas that already have innovation strengths could help them increase their appeal to talent and tech activity, so they become self-sustaining technology hubs themselves—resulting in less innovation offshoring, a stronger overall U.S. advanced technology innovation ecosystem, and more economic opportunity for more people. The benefits of these designated hubs will extend not just to the states where they are located, but also to adjacent states, as the spillover effects strengthen regional economies. As such, both the Endless Frontier Act and the Innovation Centers Acceleration Act include support for the creation of new self-sustaining regional technology hubs, thereby not only growing the local technology-based economy but doing so over a broader geographical area. [3]

Fortunately, Congress is more focused on these issues than any time since the late 1980s, and there is increasing bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done. We offer a number of proposals to achieve these three national objectives.

1. Improve and Pass the Endless Frontier Act

The Endless Frontier Act is a bold and needed initiative that could play a key role in ensuring U.S. advanced technology leadership. However, we suggest a number of improvements to the legislation, mostly around ensuring that the bill supports not just early-stage university research but also later-stage applied research, and that the legislation strengthens the program’s connections with industry. The program will have enhanced economic impact if it supports research that industry actually uses here in America.

In particular, under the main program to provide grants to higher education, the program would be strengthened if nonprofit entities were made eligible to lead research consortia. There are a number of areas wherein the legislation could strengthen industry ties, such as by allowing matching grants to companies for their own doctoral fellowship programs and requiring a cash match of at least 10 percent from industry for any higher education institution or consortium to receive funding. A cash match is an insurance policy that the research will benefit companies in America, and not simply result in academic journal articles. In addition, the legislation should build in a reporting requirement, especially for successful commercialization and technology transfers to firms in the United States. And to better strengthen the legislation’s innovation hubs component, at least 20 percent of the grant funding to university centers should go to those centers geographically located in designated regional technology hubs.

The legislation should include a provision to fund industry-supported and university partnership research and development (R&D) consortia in the 10 core technologies. To qualify for support, businesses must provide at least half the funding for such consortia, as well as take a leadership role in shaping the research activities. Moreover, these partnerships should take the lead in developing technology road maps for each of the 10 technology areas. These road maps should solicit input from key industry stakeholders, trade and professional associations, and other technology experts. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) process has done this in a more informal way for some particular technologies.

It is also critical that the final legislation retains and even strengthens the provisions to establish a competitive regional technology hub program. The reality is that it will be impossible to transform reasonably strong technology regions into world-class ones (such as Silicon Valley and Boston) without a focused and dedicated program such as this. The other provisions in the legislation do not meet this need.

The legislation also rightly requires a strategy and report on economic security, science, research, and innovation to support the national security strategy. Congress should make it explicit that any such strategy must be based on an in-depth analysis of U.S. industry (and other institutions’) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (including by benchmarking U.S. industry, institutions, and policies against those of major competitor nations) as well as an in-depth assessment of U.S. technological and industry strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the core 10 technology areas, including how the United States matches up against key competitors. To the extent possible, this should assess where the United States stands in the development, commercialization, production, and use of each of the core 10 technologies, especially vis-à-vis key U.S. military adversaries.

2. Fully Fund the CHIPS Act to Support U.S. Semiconductor Reshoring and R&D

Key aspects of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) Act include the following important measures:

• Provision of $10 billion in matching grants for World Trade Organization (WTO)-consistent state/local incentives to attract semiconductor manufacturing facilities, which would help level the playing field with respect to other nations’ incentives;
• Investment of $7 billion over five years for semiconductor research at agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy, and DARPA;
• Creation of a Manufacturing USA Institute for Semiconductor Manufacturing as well as a National Semiconductor Technology Center to research and prototype advanced semiconductors;
• Introduction of a 40 percent investment tax credit for semiconductor equipment and facilities expenditures; and
• Creation of a $750 million multilateral security fund to support development and adoption of secure microelectronics and microelectronics supply chains. [4]

President Biden’s infrastructure plan supports investing $50 billion through the CHIPS Act. [5] It is critical that Congress appropriate these direct and indirect funds for this critical industry.

3. Improve the R&D Tax Credit

Compared with America’s competitors, the R&D credit is quite parsimonious. [6] As such, Congress should double the rate of the credit, and improve the ability of newer, pre-revenue companies to take advantage of it. In addition, companies’ expenditures on global standard-setting activities and on training for frontline workers should be eligible for the credit. The American Innovation and Jobs Act would do some of this, as would proposed legislation to double the credit. [7]

Congress also should provide tax credits for building and operating critical mineral and rare earth element processing facilities would begin to make the United States competitive against unfair Chinese trade practices and make viable a key U.S. industrial sector. Cleanly processed minerals and rare-earth elements are vital to making the batteries for electric vehicles and avoiding expanded dependence on China, as the United States currently processes less than 4 percent of the minerals needed for batteries.

4. Reestablish the Commerce Department’s Advanced Technology Program

To strengthen industry-government cooperation and provide more federal support for commercial R&D, Congress should reestablish the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which would share the cost of industry-defined and industry-led early-phase technology development projects selected through merit-based competitions.

ATP was for product innovations. But companies can be slow to adopt many innovative and new production technologies for several reasons—including both the high technical and market risk of going first and having critical learning invariably spill over, thereby making it easier for followers to learn from the inevitable initial mistakes of the leaders. As such, Congress should reestablish ATP and expand its scope to also include support for innovative production process pilot programs. Any company in the United States could apply for funding (to be matched by its own funding) to demonstrate an advanced technology production process in a U.S. facility. In exchange for the support, the company would have to agree to exchange best practices and lessons with other firms in the United States.

5. Expand and Put on a Sustainable Footing the Manufacturing USA Center Program

The Manufacturing USA manufacturing institutes represent an important new innovation organizational model. They are one of the only mechanisms that establish national consortia of the entire manufacturing and innovation ecosystem: large OEMs, small companies, new ventures, academic and training institutions of all types, MEPs, FFRDCs, federal agencies, state and local economic development and workforce development programs. While the centers themselves are located, by necessity, in particular geographic areas, the purpose of the institutes is not to support regional development but rather to support manufacturers with similar technology needs across the entire nation.

Sixteen institutes have been established over the past seven years, and now is the time to buttress that model. Congress should provide more funding to establish significantly more centers, with the establishment of centers decided by industry, on the basis of firms coming together to show leadership and commit funding. China has committed to the establishment of around 45 centers. Germany has over 60 centers. The United States should try to have at least 40 to 50 centers, including new manufacturing tech demonstration and training centers and regional satellite centers for existing institutes, provided adequate industry commitment.

At the same time, funding levels for each institute should be increased and not time-limited after five years. As long as industry is still adequately engaged with a center, including providing funding, government funding should continue. In addition, institutes will need additional funding to work more closely with regional manufacturing ecosystems and to establish more regional technology prototyping demo centers for companies to utilize to test new manufacturing technologies. Expanded funding should also be made available to help the institutes coordinate their work across technologies and platforms; to establish stronger links to federal R&D agencies that traditionally do little in manufacturing R&D. Finally, increased funding is needed to expand education and workforce development efforts. Manufacturing technologies will not be implemented unless an advanced manufacturing skilled workforce is ready to implement them. This has become a key role for Institutes, but more should be done, particularly to promote cross-institute collaborations.

6. Ensure That any National Infrastructure Legislation Enables Technology Demand Initiatives

Demonstrations of new process technologies and their required infrastructure support are one of the largest gaps in today’s federal funding portfolio. For large-scale, capital-intensive sectors, the contrast between the United States and its key competitors, especially China, is stark. U.S. facilities are increasingly forced to be followers because private investors are too risk-averse to fund early commercial-scale facilities. The Departments of Energy and Defense should support a robust portfolio of cost-shared projects to accelerate process innovation in key sectors and work with consortia of firms to develop road maps to guide demonstration planning. [8] In addition, by supporting key technology-related infrastructure investments and ensuring that a significant share of procurement is from companies in America (or at least from close allies), innovation and production can be spurred. Areas of investment could include modernizing and making smart the electric grid; deploying broadband, including 5G wireless systems, in high-cost rural areas; and supporting the development of smart cities.

7. Establish a Tax Incentive for Companies Reshoring Production From China to U.S. Labor Surplus Areas

Congress should establish a reverse-auction tax credit based on the amount of value-added production allocated to a qualified labor market area. [9] For example, if a company bids to move $50 million of annual value-added production (the value of sales subtracted by input costs, such as electricity and supplier parts) back to the United States if it receives a tax credit of $20 million (40 percent of value added), and another company says it will move back $70 million for a $25 million credit (35 percent of value), the latter company would receive priority for credit funds because it would be asking for less of a subsidy per dollar of value added than the first company. There would be a one-time auction and all the bids would be accepted in reverse order of the subsidy share being asked for until all the appropriated funds are expended. To qualify, companies would have to close a Chinese facility and open a different one in a U.S. labor surplus area to make the same product(s).

8. Create an “Innovation Voucher” Program

As in almost a dozen other countries, innovation vouchers can spur innovation and stimulate knowledge transfer by allowing small and mid-sized enterprises to “buy” expertise from universities, national labs, and research institutions to conduct studies, analyze the innovation potential of new technologies, etc. A promising example has been the Small Business Voucher Pilot program in the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which has provided vouchers to 114 small businesses across 31 states, disbursing more than $22 million since 2015. The administration should work with Congress to extend such vouchers across the entire federal lab system under the auspices of NIST by authorizing $50 million that would be state-matched. The place to start would be with the Small Business Innovation Voucher Act, introduced by Sens. Cortez Masto (D-NV), Todd Young (R-IN), and Chris Coons (D-DE) with companion House legislation by Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO) and Tim Burchett (R-TN), which would authorize a $10 million program run out of the U.S. Small Business Administration that provides vouchers of between $15,000 and $75,000. [10] Such a program should be larger and also work in partnership with NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).

9. Establish an Advanced Technology and Industry-Sector Analysis Unit

No federal entity is responsible for competitiveness analysis, especially advanced industry competitiveness. Congress should beef up efforts at the Department of Commerce, perhaps as a combined effort of its International Trade Administration (ITA) Industry and Analysis unit and efforts at NIST. Their job would be to create a new traded-sector and emerging technology analysis unit that prioritizes interpretation and analysis. It should assess key indicators of overall U.S. competitiveness performance—such as foreign direct investment, jobs, output, and market share—and develop strategic policy road maps. It should also revive the annual report “The U.S. Industrial Outlook” as a mechanism for raising awareness about competitive position by sector. This unit could also take the lead in analysis of critical supply chains. [11] Congress should provide additional funding for improving federal data used to analyze industry competitiveness, including Improvements in input-output tables, so we can reliably see domestic supply chains, creation of trade in value-added statistics, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is developing now in conjunction with NSF, and creation of satellite accounts in key competitive industries. [12]

10. Establish an Advanced Manufacturing Scaled-Up Capital Program

Hardware invented in the United States frequently isn’t scaled up here because the financial system does not support it. U.S. venture capitalists prefer “capital-lite” firms, particularly in software and media, that scale at almost zero marginal cost, rather than capital intensive businesses that need to build factories. As a result, many hardware technologies are “orphaned” in the United States and must therefore grow up abroad. To address this gap and compete more effectively with Chinese and other state-sponsored scale-up financial support programs, Congress should either create a modern-day Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or expand the mission of the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to reduce scale-up risk in designated critical industries. Either way, the organization would provide project finance and associated assistance through grants, loans, loan guarantees, and other instruments. In addition, the Ex-Im Bank and Development Finance Corporation should be tasked to provide guarantees and other financial assistance to leverage hardware companies that receive support to scale up globally.

America is running out of time. Once lost, a firm’s—or a nation’s—technology advantage is almost impossible to regain unless it is willing to spend enormous sums of money, as China is doing. If the federal government does not act boldly within the next few years to significantly strengthen the U.S. advanced technology economy, it runs the risk of seeing an America that will have permanently lost much of the advantage it gained in the last half of the 20th century. We believe that it is not too late for action.

David Adler

Robert D. Atkinson, President and Founder, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Dean Bartles, President and CEO, Manufacturing Technology Group

William Bonvillian

Robbie Diamond, President and CEO, SAFE

Stephen Ezell, Vice President for Global Innovation Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Jeff Gerlach, Director of Policy, SAFE

David Leech

Andrew Reamer, Research Professor, George Washington Institute of Public Policy

Phillip Singerman

Marc Stanley

Gregory Tassey

Carroll Thomas

Patrick Windham

* Authors listed without affiliations are expressing their own views herein.

[1] Albert N. Link, “The economics of metrology: an exploratory study of the impact of measurement science on U.S. productivity,” Economics of Innovation and New Technology (March 2021), DOI: 10.1080/10438599.2021.1895905.

[2] Willy Shih, “ NASA’s HyTEC Program Is A Great Way To Help Aerospace Manufacturers i n t he U.S. ,” Forbes , March 12, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2021/03/12/nasas-hytec-program-is-a-great-way-to-help-aerospace-manufacturers-in-the-us/ .

[3] Senator Chris Coons, “ Sens. Coons, Durbin announce legislation to expand federal R&D, extend tech economy to more cities across America, ” news release, March 19, 2021, https://www.coons.senate.gov/news/press-releases/sens-coons-durbin-announce-legislation-to-expand-federal-randd-extend-tech-economy-to-more-cities-across-america .

[4] Willy Shih, “ Congress Has Supported Moves To Revive Domestic Semiconductor Manufacturing, Here’s What Needs To Happen Next,” Forbes , July 26, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2020/07/26/congress-has-supported-moves-to-revive-domestic-semiconductor-manufacturing-heres-what-needs-to-happen-next/ .

[5] The White House, “ FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan,” news release, March 31, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/ .

[6] John Lester and Jacek Warda, “ Enhanced Tax Incentives for R&D Would Make Americans Richer” (ITIF, September 2020), /publications/2020/09/08/enhanced-tax-incentives-rd-would-make-americans-richer .

[7] Senator Todd Young, “ Senators Young, Hassan Introduce American Innovation and Jobs Act, ” news release, October 20, 2020, https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senators-young-hassan-introduce-american-innovation-and-jobs-act- .

[8] Robert Rozansky and David M. Hart, “ More and Better: Building and Managing a Federal Energy Demonstration Project Portfolio” (ITIF, May 2020), /publications/2020/05/18/more-and-better-building-and-managing-federal-energy-demonstration-project ; David M. Hart, “Building Back Cleaner With Industrial Decarbonization Demonstration Projects” (ITIF, March 2021), /publications/2021/03/08/building-back-cleaner-industrial-decarbonization-demonstration-projects .

[9] Robert D. Atkinson, “ Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Why Congress Should Establish a Tax Incentive For Companies Reshoring Production from China to U.S. Labor Surplus Areas” (ITIF, March 2021), /publications/2021/03/07/killing-two-birds-one-stone-why-congress-should-establish-tax-incentive .

[10] Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, “Cortez Masto, Young, Coons, Introduce Small Business Innovation Voucher Act,” news release, February 13, 2020, https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cortez-masto-young-coons-introduce-small-business-innovation-voucher-act .

[11] Andrew Reamer, “ Biden Executive Order on America ’ s Supply Chains — fact sheet, text, remarks (2/24/21),” American Economic Association forum, accessed April 7, 2021, https://www.aeaweb.org/forum/1875/biden-executive-order-americas-supply-chains-sheet-remarks .

[12] Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), “Input-Output Accounts: Who Sells What to Whom,” BEA’s Official Blog, March 15, 2021, https://www.bea.gov/news/blog/2021-03-15/input-output-accounts-who-sells-what-whom ; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Trade in Value Added,” accessed April 7, 2021, https://www.oecd.org/sti/ind/measuring-trade-in-value-added.htm ; BEA, “Special Topics,” last modified November 5, 2019, https://www.bea.gov/resources/learning-center/what-to-know-special-topics .

Editors’ Recommendations

September 8, 2020

Enhanced Tax Incentives for R&D Would Make Americans Richer

March 7, 2021

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Why Congress Should Establish a Tax Incentive For Companies Reshoring Production from China to U.S. Labor Surplus Areas

Politics and Society in Modern America 59

Gary gerstle, elizabeth hinton, margaret o’mara, and julian e. zelizer,  series editors.

This wide-ranging series in modern U.S. political history presents not only works that represent the best of traditional political history but also those that integrate insights and methodologies of social and cultural history, challenge conventional periodizations, and situate the American political experience in a comparative framework. Learn more about the series, in the editors' words, here .

How the US crusade against prostitution became a tool of empire

A century-long history of immigrant incarceration in the United States

The largely untold story of the great migration of white southerners to the industrial Midwest and its profound and enduring political and social consequences

How the Clinton administration betrayed its progressive principles and capitulated to the right

How cable television upended American political life in the pursuit of profits and influence

A history of the battles over US immigrants’ rights since 1965—and how these conflicts reshaped access to education, employment, civil liberties, and more

The first complete history of US industry's most influential and controversial lobbyist

The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants' lives

The Politics of Whiteness presents the first sustained analysis of white racial identity among workers in what was the South's largest industry--the textile industry--for much of the twentieth century. Grounding her work in a study of...

How Hawai'i became an emblem of multiculturalism during its journey to statehood in the mid-twentieth century

The politics and policies that led to America's expansion of the penal system and reduction of welfare programs

How the New Deal was a unique historical moment and what this reveals about U.S. politics, economics, and culture

Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese...

A Class by Herself explores the historical role and influence of protective legislation for American women workers, both as a step toward modern labor standards and as a barrier to equal rights. Spanning the twentieth century, the book...

Don't Blame Us traces the reorientation of modern liberalism and the Democratic Party away from their roots in labor union halls of northern cities to white-collar professionals in postindustrial high-tech suburbs, and casts new light...

Josephine Roche (1886–1976) was a progressive activist, New Deal policymaker, and businesswoman. As a pro-labor and feminist member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, she shaped the founding legislation of the U.S. welfare...

How high energy consumption transformed postwar Phoenix and deepened inequalities in the American Southwest

The story of black conservatives in the Republican Party from the New Deal to Ronald Reagan

The first major biography of the 1972 U.S. presidential candidate and unsung champion of American liberalism

The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the "yellow peril" to "model minorities"--peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and...

Lobbying America tells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. Benjamin Waterhouse traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and...

What is the magic formula for turning a place into a high-tech capital? How can a city or region become a high-tech powerhouse like Silicon Valley? For over half a century, through boom times and bust, business leaders and politicians...

Unlike the 1930s, when the United States tragically failed to open its doors to Europeans fleeing Nazism, the country admitted over three million refugees during the Cold War. This dramatic reversal gave rise to intense political and...

In the early 1960s, American conservatives seemed to have fallen on hard times. McCarthyism was on the run, and movements on the political left were grabbing headlines. The media lampooned John Birchers's accusations that Dwight...

How Red Scare politics undermined the reform potential of the New Deal

Mothers of Conservatism tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots right in the two decades following World War II. Michelle Nickerson describes how red-hunting homemakers mobilized activist...

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about...

This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using...

How philanthropy has shaped America in the twentieth century

Trucking Country is a social history of long-haul trucking that explores the contentious politics of free-market capitalism in post-World War II America. Shane Hamilton paints an eye-opening portrait of the rural highways of the...

From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a...

A political history of the most famous desegregation crisis in America

In a fresh and timely reinterpretation, Nelson Lichtenstein examines how trade unionism has waxed and waned in the nation's political and moral imagination, among both devoted partisans and intransigent foes. From the steel foundry to...

The story of personal debt in modern America

In 1958, an African-American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of an...

How the government enforced sex and gender conformity and relegated gays to second-class citizenship

Was there ever really a black-Jewish alliance in twentieth-century America? And if there was, what happened to it? In Troubling the Waters , Cheryl Greenberg answers these questions more definitively than they have ever been answered...

Los Angeles has attracted intense attention as a "world city" characterized by multiculturalism and globalization. Yet, little is known about the historical transformation of a place whose leaders proudly proclaimed themselves white...

Whether kids love or hate the food served there, the American school lunchroom is the stage for one of the most popular yet flawed social welfare programs in our nation's history. School Lunch Politics covers this complex and...

In the 1960s, Mississippi was the heart of white southern resistance to the civil-rights movement. To many, it was a backward-looking society of racist authoritarianism and violence that was sorely out of step with modern liberal...

Longtime activist, author, and antifeminist leader Phyllis Schlafly is for many the symbol of the conservative movement in America. In this provocative new book, historian Donald T. Critchlow sheds new light on Schlafly's life and on...

In 1937, Mexican workers were among the strikers and supporters beaten, arrested, and murdered by Chicago policemen in the now infamous Republic Steel Mill Strike. Using this event as a springboard, Zaragosa Vargas embarks on the first...

Suburban sprawl transformed the political culture of the American South as much as the civil rights movement did during the second half of the twentieth century. The Silent Majority provides the first regionwide account of the...

The forgotten story of how southern white supremacy and resistance to desegregation helped give birth to the modern conservative movement

"How much does it cost?" We think of this question as one that preoccupies the nation's shoppers, not its statesmen. But, as Pocketbook Politics dramatically shows, the twentieth-century American polity in fact developed in response to...

Did America's fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often "yes." In Morning in America , Gil Troy argues that the Great...

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans captive. Thus began the Iran Hostage Crisis, an affair that captivated the American public for 444 days and marked America's...

During the past quarter century, free-market capitalism was recognized not merely as a successful system of wealth creation, but as the key determinant of the health of political and cultural democracy. Now, renowned British journalist...

The New Deal placed security at the center of American political and economic life by establishing an explicit partnership between the state, economy, and citizens. In America, unlike anywhere else in the world, most people depend...

America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle...

A gripping portrait of black power politics and the struggle for civil rights in postwar Oakland

American feminism has always been about more than the struggle for individual rights and equal treatment with men. There's also a vital and continuing tradition of women's reform that sought social as well as individual rights and...

From going AWOL to collaborating with communists, assaulting fellow servicemen to marrying without permission, military crime during the Cold War offers a telling glimpse into a military undergoing a demographic and legal...

In May of 1919, women from around the world gathered in Zurich, Switzerland, and proclaimed, "We dedicate ourselves to peace!" Just months after the end of World War I, the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom--a group led...

Why, alone among industrial democracies, does the United States not have national health insurance? While many books have addressed this question, Dead on Arrival is the first to do so based on original archival research for the full...

Progressive-era "poverty warriors" cast poverty in America as a problem of unemployment, low wages, labor exploitation, and political disfranchisement. In the 1990s, policy specialists made "dependency" the issue and crafted incentives...

Divided We Stand is a study of how class and race have intersected in American society--above all, in the "making" and remaking of the American working class in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing mainly on longshoremen in...

Dad built a bomb shelter in the backyard, Mom stocked the survival kit in the basement, and the kids practiced ducking under their desks at school. This was family life in the new era of the A-bomb. This was civil defense. In this...

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Technology and its Effects on Modern America

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