Can Online Markets Tackle Poverty?

Bill Gates has scattered quite a few nuggets of remunerative star dust over the years, but one quotation should be more widely known:

Bill Gates has scattered quite a few nuggets of remunerative star dust over the years, but one quotation should be more widely known:

"The first rule of any technology used... is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."

Wonferful!

But is it true?

Discerning readers may have guessed that the dot dot dot above replaced 'in business', but Gates's point might apply to the labour market. How efficient are the mechanisms that connect labour supply to labour demand? If there are generally inefficient, will using technology merely compound matters, or are we missing important tricks that might radically increase Britain's porductivity?

These thoughts amount to a quick cyber shout to anybody watching about tomorrow's RSA Thursday Lunchtime event:

How can we use online markets more effectively to ensure we create value and opportunity for the low-paid and unemployed?

The Speakers are Wingham Rowan, project director at Slivers of Time Working; Jerry Fishenden, founder of the Centre for Technology Policy Research and there will be a "contribution" (presumably verbal) by Rt Hon James Purnell MP. The event will be chaired by Mathew Taylor.

The blurb from the RSA events team is below:

E-marketplaces have developed exponentially in the last 15 years, and financial institutions now turbo-trade billions worth of assets every day. But the benefits of these new marketplaces are primarily concentrated at the top levels of the economy, and have neglected the resources that people at the bottom of the economic pyramid could sell. A new generation of marketplace could utilise the time, potential and skills of the less well-off or unemployed – simultaneously creating value for the individuals concerned, and flooding the market with hitherto untapped products and services.

Creating ‘modern markets for all’ should now be a priority, but the private sector can’t work alone to create the marketplaces needed. Is it time for policymakers to make modern, inclusive marketplaces a priority across multiple sectors at the bottom of the economy?