The Slowing Pace of Progress
In recent years, the rate of productivity growth in America has quickened, but the official statistics are deceiving because they mask the dramatic disparity in how different sectors of the economy are performing. In a much- discussed piece for the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Robert J. Gordon, a respected economist from Northwestern University, performs a careful analysis of U.S. productivity trends since 1995, adjusting for changes in the business cycle, quality of the labor supply, and other technical factors. He finds, predictably enough, that we have become very efficient at making computers and, to a lesser extent, other durable manufactured items. But such production accounts for only 12 percent of the U.S. economy, Gordon notes. For the other 88 percent, comprising banks, stores, and other service providers, rates of productivity growth have actually been falling slightly.
There's another way to grasp how comparatively undramatic today's high technology has been in its effect on ordinary life. Think of the life experience of a relative who was born near the beginning of the 20th century. My grandfather, who came into this world in 1905, used to tell me about how, when he was a boy growing up in Cincinnati, his schoolmates would rush to the window and gawk if an automobile happened by. Lester Longman, who was born 20 months after the Wright brothers' first flight, lived to see not only men walk on the moon but the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, too.
Yet where is the invention today that makes schoolchildren rush to the windows? I was 13 years old at the time of the first moon shot and, like many kids my age, wondered if the adults were right that my generation one day would build suburbs up there. But it's now been 28 years since any human being has even left Earth's orbit. Meanwhile, there has been virtually no advance in jet propulsion systems save to make them quieter and more fuel efficient, and air travel times have actually lengthened. Until the cancellation of the Concorde flights in July, following the fiery crash in Paris, it was possible to cross the Atlantic at speeds of up to 1,350 mph. Now the fastest available flight goes less than half that speed. Even if the Concorde is eventually returned to service, the 31-year-old plane is so antique that its useful life is limited, and there is nothing on the planning boards to replace it.
Similarly, though automobiles now contain microchips and some can talk to you, in most parts of the country it actually takes longer to drive from point A to point B than it did 30 years ago, because of worsening congestion. Over the past 15 years, while the population of major urban areas rose by 22 percent, time spent in traffic jams soared by 235 percent. In 1938, the 20th Century Limited, pulled by a steam engine, sped from New York to Chicago in 16 hours. Today, Amtrak's version of the train, drawn by a high-tech, fuel-injected diesel with computer diagnostics on board, takes five hours longer.
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