So I've been studying Unger for about four years now through my political activism. He is verbose in his language but once you get used to it you can see his brilliance.
His core arguments on the KE are as follows:
- It is creating a schism in the American workforce, and those on the outside lack access to the necessary educational institutions to ever catch up.
- Our IP laws are stagnating our economic development by keeping it isolated to a handful of companies in each industry vertical. Compared to our past this prevents transitioning to an entirely new mode of production. Compare that to history - if you wanted to open a loom factory during the industrial rev. you had access to the loom tech. Not the case today. There's also no shortcut like there was in the past. E.g. Put a farmer in a factory assembly line is NBD. Put a plant worker behind a laptop and ask him to write a script? Not happening.
--- Platform companies only have their dominion because an IP loophole states the individual's data is not their property. We make our data our property and companies like FB/Google struggle to retain their power.
- It's a form of work that utilizes the greatest human power, imagination.
- Under the right political structures this form of work ushers in a new human era. Under the current it stagnates our potential.
Happy to answer specifics if anyone has any questions about his work/perspective.
His core arguments on the KE are as follows:
- It is creating a schism in the American workforce, and those on the outside lack access to the necessary educational institutions to ever catch up.
- Our IP laws are stagnating our economic development by keeping it isolated to a handful of companies in each industry vertical. Compared to our past this prevents transitioning to an entirely new mode of production. Compare that to history - if you wanted to open a loom factory during the industrial rev. you had access to the loom tech. Not the case today. There's also no shortcut like there was in the past. E.g. Put a farmer in a factory assembly line is NBD. Put a plant worker behind a laptop and ask him to write a script? Not happening.
--- Platform companies only have their dominion because an IP loophole states the individual's data is not their property. We make our data our property and companies like FB/Google struggle to retain their power.
- It's a form of work that utilizes the greatest human power, imagination.
- Under the right political structures this form of work ushers in a new human era. Under the current it stagnates our potential.
Happy to answer specifics if anyone has any questions about his work/perspective.