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About the Author
About Dr. John Psarouthakis
Dr. John Psarouthakis has observed the world from a remarkable range of vantage points, taking a proactive role in each. As an orphaned child he endured the Nazi occupation of Crete. He arrived in the United States nearly broke and speaking only a few English words, but graduated from MIT. Early in his career he led a Martin Corp. team researching nuclear power for deep space travel. He later led the Allis Chalmers R&D lab, then became a key player in finding, assessing, and acquiring manufacturing companies around the world for Masco Corp. His first entrepreneurial venture, JPI Inc., became a Fortune 500 company before he sold it. Inc. Magazine twice named him Entrepreneur of the Year. He has served on countless boards and advisory panels, and lectured at MIT on Business Enterprise. In recent years he has vectored back to his academic roots-teaching as an adjunct at the University of Michigan and as a visiting fellow in Europe, currently at the University of Edinburgh. The Technology Imperative is his latest book. He has written or co-authored six others, including How to Acquire the Right Business, and Elisabeth’s Gift, a memoir of the remarkable impoverished aunt who raised him in Crete.
Reviews
“Few books combine timeliness, readability, and forward vision in one compact package. John Psarouthakis does so while illustrating technology’s escalating impact on our workforce and our society. The good news: Increased productivity means we are entering an era when even if we assemble a new car in China at zero labor cost, the costs of transportation will outweigh the labor savings. The bad news: American assembly line workers need much more education, and we will need fewer and fewer to make the same number of vehicles. This is the kernel hard economic truth of our times, one our leaders should give highest priority. Psarouthakis offers an important idea in the search for solutions.”
—David Cole, Chairman Auto Harvest, Chairman Emeritus Center for Automotive Research.
“Clear thinking and clear writing. I hope the book is widely received and commented on.”
—Allan Gillmour, President, Wayne State University, former Vice-Chairman for Finance, Ford Motor Co.
“The U.S. economy faces significant challenges. Dr. Psarouthakis has written a scathing attack on the political system and wants to generate a conversation about the appropriate policies—he is sure to do that.”
—Aneel Karnani, Professor of Strategy, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
“I hope our politicians and businessmen will read this timely and very well written book.”
—Izak Duenyas, Professor of Manufacturing Management, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
”(This book) deals with the big challenges of our times, including adapting to destructive technological changes, globalization, massive budget deficits, falling educational attainment, and dysfunction of democracy. It is a clarion call to action while we still have time to set the ship upright”.
—H. Nejat Seyhun, Ph.D, Professor of Finance and Jerome B. and Eilene M. York Professor of Business Administration, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
“The Technology Imperative formulates and explores the paradox of progress in an engaging, readable, forward-looking manner. This important book serves as both a measure of our technology’s success, and the consequent loss in human value. As Psarouthakis’s book makes clear, finding economic answers to this paradox in this century is not merely a matter of esthetics and philosophy, but a matter of survival.”
—Theodore Scaltas, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Edinburgh.
“This short book is an excellent tool to unlock our minds from the preconceptions of dead-end politics, and a blueprint for shaping the future of a leading, successful, free market nation.”
—Periklis Gogas, Assistant Professor of Economic Analysis and International Economics, University of Thrace, Greece
About the Book
The Technology Imperative
If the 20th Century was the American Century, why does the 21st Century seem so daunting for America? If we are still the globe’s leading manufacturer (and we are), why does globalization terrify us? If the entire world sends its best and brightest to American graduate schools, why does our education system need reform? Why is the most affluent nation mired in a stagnant economy? Why do politicians of every stripe find maximum traction with empty chants of: “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”?
This small but powerful book insists we must define our problems before seeking solutions. Dr. John Psarouthakis uses that fundamental engineering principle to demonstrate, in clear and enjoyable prose, that a single problem (and opportunity) underlies all the above questions.
Just as our 19th Century farmer nation endured social upheaval but prospered in a massive shift to an urban and manufacturing 20th Century, we face a new upheaval today. Both enormous transitions stem from the same all-powerful, irreversible force—technological progress.
This time around, Psarouthakis demonstrates, the great danger is that populist political rhetoric will strangle the free-market generator of wealth for all Americans, leaving us with a failed economy and a failed nation. The American capitalist economic engine needs repair, now. It must find new ways of sharing the wealth it creates—as it did via job creation in the 20th Century—or the politicians will ensure that the prevailing gloom will be warranted.
That challenge is The Technology Imperative.
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