The Industrial Revolution and Child Labor

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In the industrial era, you could make a strong case that we were increasing our growth at the expense of the planet. In most rich countries, slavery ended early in the industrial era. Child labor ended before the twentieth century. We didn't start dealing with pollution and species that we pushe to the brink of extinction until much, much later than that. So we kind of looked after ourselves first, and then the rest of the planet afterward.

In this episode from October 2019, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and former a16z podcast showrunner Sonal Choksi bring on MIT economist and bestselling author Andrew McAfee to discuss why the lessons of human growth in times past, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, might not apply to our future. It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow — and progress — was through destroying the environment. But is this interplay between human growth vs. environment really a zero-sum game? Even if it were true in history, is it true today? If capitalism is not responsible for environmental degradation, than who or what is? And where does (and doesn’t) technology come in?

The conversation is based on McAfee’s 2019 book More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources -- and What Happens Next, ranging broadly across many areas of growth, from the future of energy and agriculture to the role of capitalism and technology today and tomorrow, from dematerialization to Tesla, Buckminster Fuller, and more.