Apr
21
Class #22- Technology and Entrepreneurship
April 21, 2015 | 1 Comment
The New York Times article on how Technology could help fight income inequality was quite interesting to read but with all it’s predictions and speculations, I am still skeptical on the validity and accuracy of these predictions as there does not seem to be much evidence to support them. Maybe it is just me but blatantly throwing out vague speculations is not enough to completely convince me that technology will be the answer to our income inequality problems. One point that this article makes is that the increase in technology will bring back the resurgence of less-skilled workers like the ones that have since been lost to overseas labor.
The theory behind this is that as technologies like computer use increases, it will be becomes easier to use for people with minimal skills and knowledge with computers. Along with that, while there is a generational gap right now when it comes to computer usage, the article predicts that this will change over time as older generations retire from the work force and younger people take their place. Over time, in combination with computers becoming easier to use, this may increase less-skilled labor. While I do find this idealistic and optimistic view of the future of human-computer labor relations, I am still skeptical about this as it may in fact be the opposite where computers can replace human labor all together and there will be no need. At this point, I find this article’s claims as convincing as the claim when computers first came out in the 90’s that the internet would help students do their homework faster (sorry Facebook and other social networks).
In the second article we read, titled “Launching Low-Income Entrepreneurs,” I found it a pretty easy read and thought it was somewhat interesting but obvious in the points it was trying to make. It is no doubt that families of lower income would be less likely to start their own business and become Entrepreneurs over families of higher income. Families of lower income have to take greater risks as they pour a greater proportion of their savings into a business that they don’t know will succeed or not, while people of higher income, yes are also taking a risk, but the money, time and effort they put in isn’t necessarily as large as a proportion of their overall worth.
What I found interesting in this article was the fact that in most of the five boroughs, non-native residents were more likely to start entrepreneurial businesses over native residents, regardless of income. (By non-native, I was not sure if they meant immigrants or people not from New York, but I am assuming they mean immigrants). From my experience, this seems to make sense as although both groups may be of lower income, having already made the jump to leave their home country, immigrants may be willing to take more of a risk to try to make a living here in America and open up their own business as opposed to native residents, who would be more hesitant to.
The third article we read was about richer and poorer but I seemed to only understand part of it. What I did find interesting from this article was the statistics about this Gini Index that they kept talking about, although I felt as if we already knew this information from our previous classes that yes, it is increasing; income inequality is increasing.
Overall, I thought all these articles were good reads. Although somewhat obvious in some parts, it was interesting to read about the entrepreneurial rates among native/non native residents as well as based on their income. It highlights the many restrictions both social and economic that some people have on starting their own businesses. The New York Times article was interesting with it’s optimistic and idealistic at best views, although only time will tell.
