If tech is driving the ‘productivity bandwagon’, it’s time to hit the brakes

Technology is everywhere and always an unalloyed good. New technologies ultimately create better jobs and more broadly based prosperity. So goes the conventional economic wisdom. But what if it wasn’t true? What if technology had been used — in lieu of strong political and institutional restraints — to put more money in the hands of elites throughout history? 

That’s the starting point of Power and Progress, an upcoming book by…