"On the one hand, technology has made us all much more productive ... on the other, jobs have evaporated."<p>"Most of us are working harder, for less money and with no job security."<p>My econ classes taught me that increased productivity causes short-term pain for displaced workers, but results in long-term higher standards of living for everyone.<p>That relationship seems to have broken down. What if the internet destroys more jobs than it creates?<p>Is it really "post-scarcity economics"? Or is it the effect of digital networks and rising inequality?<p>Jaron Lanier argues in "Who Owns the Future" that digital networks make the economy work differently. Now the benefits of higher productivity get hoovered up the elite few, leaving most people worse off.<p>Lanier argues that there has always been inequality, but the internet enables a winner-take-all economy that keeps productivity gains from trickling down to ordinary people.<p>I'd love to see a mathematical model that quantifies jobs and salaries lost to "disruptive" new entrants, and how many jobs at what compensation levels are created in their wake.