Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford

Book review: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless FutureMartin Ford's solution to the threat posed to jobs by robots is logical, but flawed, says Matthew Partridge.

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Published by Oneworld Publications, £18.99

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Martin Ford's Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future is one of several books to make the Financial Times' long list for its Business Book of the Year award.

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Ford looks at how technology and automation is affecting the type and quantity of jobs available, and will continue to do so. According to Ford, what makes this "robot revolution" different from past technological shifts such as the agricultural and industrial revolutions is that these only affected one sector of the economy, allowing the rest of society to benefit. But changes in IT and robotics threaten the jobs of everyone from high-paid lawyers on Wall Street to Asian textile workers.

"It is easy to dismiss his prognosis as the rantings of a latter-day Luddite," notes Edward Luce in the FT. However, "unlike his first book, which was based on a thought experiment about tomorrow's world", Rise of the Robots "is grounded in today's economy" and "is well researched and disturbingly persuasive". This is "both a humbling book and, in the best sense, a humble one", agrees Barbara Ehrenreich in The New York Times. Ford "never succumbs to the obvious temptation to overdramatiseor exaggerate".

However, the book's real message isn't about "the imminent triumph of soulless automatons", says Andrew Leonard of the LA Times. It's more about the fact that "the relentless drive by capital to cut costs and boost profits is threatening to destroy the wellspring of economic growth that capitalism requires... when there are no jobs for humans, there will be no consumers with the disposable income to buy the products being produced so efficiently by robots".

Worst of all, while "Henry Ford understood this when he paid his workers high enough wages to buy his cars", the business leaders of today "appear to have forgotten the lesson".Of course, just because the author has correctly identified the problem doesn't mean he's come up with the answer.

Ford suggests a citizens' income a state-paid income for all citizens, employed or otherwise as a solution. "There is logic to his remedy but not much realism," says Luce. "It's hard to see how this will happen," agrees Leonard, especiallygiven "our broken political system."

As a result, says Bryan Appleyard in The Sunday Times, "for the moment there is no hope that the rise of the robots will not be accompanied by the fall of the humans". Perhaps but only as a first step towards a solution, "Ford's may be the best the feeble human mind can come up with at the moment", says Ehrenreich.

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, by Martin Ford. Published by Oneworld Publications (£18.99).//

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri