3 Quotes by Branko Milanović

because of constant pressure to deliver more to its constituents, po­liti­cal capitalism might hone its ability to manage the economic sphere well and to keep on delivering, year in year out, more goods andser­vices than its liberal counterpart. Thus, what appear at first as a defect may prove to be an advantage.

The fact that the entire globe now operates according to the same economic princi­ples—­production or­ga­nized for profit using legally ­free wage labor and mostly privately owned capital, with decentralized coordination—is without historical pre­ce­dent.

Fears of robotics and technology arise, I think, from two human frailties. One is cognitive: we simply do not know what ­future technological change ­will be and thus cannot tell what new jobs will be created, what our ­future needs ­will be, or how raw materials ­will be used. The second is psychological: we get a thrill from fear of the unknown—in this case, thescary and yet alluring prospect of metallic robots replacing flesh-­and-­blood workers on the factory floor.