The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-First Century

An investigation of how the digital revolution is fundamentally changing our concept of work, and what it means for our future economy.

None of us has ever lived through an industrial revolution. Until now.

Digital technology is transforming every corner of the economy, fundamentally altering the way things are done, who does them, and what they earn for their efforts. In The Wealth of Humans, Economist editor Ryan Avent brings up-to-the-minute research and reporting to bear on the major economic question of our time: can the modern world manage technological changes every bit as disruptive as those that shook the socioeconomic landscape of the 19th century?

Travelling around the world, Avent investigates the meaning of work today: how technology is rendering time-tested business models outmoded and catapulting workers into a world indistinguishable from that of a generation ago. Our conceptions of the relationships between capital and labor and between rich and poor have been overturned.

Past revolutions required rewriting the social contract, as will this one. Avent looks to the history of the Industrial Revolution and the work of numerous experts for lessons in reordering society. The future needn’t be bleak, but as The Wealth of Humans explains, we can’t expect to restructure the world without rethinking what an economy should be.