Question

How does the business environment and technological innovation in the modern United States resemble the United States during the late 1800s and early 1900s? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the US culture of innovation throughout history and today?

Answer 1

The United States, along with the rest of the rest of the world, is experiencing a new technological revolution. In the late 1800s/early 1900s, the US culture, society, and notably economy, were profoundly transformed by the Industrial Revolution. New innovations were steadily churned out by brilliant and intrepid inventors, and as a result products were churned out at unprecedented rates.

Today, we see the US in a new technological revolution. It can be called  the Digital Revolution, or Information Revolution, but it mainly refers to the astounding pace of increase in computing power, and its various implications in our lives, from e-assistants to social media to driver-less cars. 

The strengths and weaknesses are similar to what they were 100 years ago. There is no "slow-down" button on free-market driven innovation, and it is difficult for our government, with all its checks and balances and, in 2017, intense gridlock, to adjust our laws and social norms to the new technology. We saw this with the low quality of life that factory workers suffered in the turn of the century, and we see it today as the world struggles to keep up with the increasingly central role of technology in our lives, and all the drawbacks that come with it, such as fake news finding an easy audience on social media and terrorists able to spread their propaganda around the world, inevitably finding a sympathetic ear.