We are told that robots are about to make us superfluous andthat the giants of Silicon Valley will swallow the economy. Art Diamond's Openness to Creative Destruction provides a healthy antidote to all this gloom and doom. He gives us the necessary historical perspective: we owe our comfort and even our lives to generations of disruptive innovation. Yet each disruption bred apocalyptic portents like those we hear today. Diamond provides a timely warning
against heeding the pessimists of the moment by imposing legal and regulatory shackles on the innovators.
Arthur M. Diamond, Jr. is Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He has published many journal articles on issues in labor economics, economics of technology, and economics of entrepreneurship.