We are living through an industrial revolution. While industrial revolution might seem like something out of the distant past, the massive data center buildout and the fear of a job apocalypse are an echo of three prior industrial revolutions. Just as the 19th century English textile workers - luddites - violently protested the machinery introduced during the First Industrial Revolution, today workers are similarly fearful of AI-induced layoffs. Economic success in the decades ahead will depend on the willingness of households, businesses, and governments to innovate and change their ways of living and working. To explore these questions, the Fourth Industrial Revolution provides a unique frame to assess global economic transformation, providing a point-in-time reference for placing current events in the context of sustained, multi-decade periods of faster and slower growth. Political, social, and economic metamorphoses have accompanied each revolution. This book examines the economic logic of the significant variation in growth over long periods. Despite Silicon Valley technologists promising AI will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need, prior revolutions tell us that only the strongest social and economic pressures overcome resistance, most notably in our political system. The success of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not assured. While the future is uncertain, history suggests success requires that barriers are addressed, workers and businesses engage in the necessary change, and a positive policy response provides the needed leadership. Breakthrough: A Growth Revolution proposes a Growth and Fairness Agenda and a New Social Contract through which stronger economic growth and more equally distributed incomes can be possible.
