Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us

• Book Review: Ro Khanna, Dignity in a Digital Age (Simon & Schuster, 2022).

Writing in the New York Journal of Books, Rob Atkinson notes that the social and political implications of the digital economy are the source of increasing attention. The latest entry comes from Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley. Congressman Khanna served as a political appointee in the U.S. Commerce Department during the Obama administration and then ran for Congress, challenging a Democratic incumbent in the primary.

Khanna is clearly a liberal in his political orientation. He served as national co-chair of the Bernie Sanders 2020 run for president and is a member of the House Progressive Caucus. But to those progressive sentiments, Khanna brings a welcome pragmatism, including a willingness to reach across the aisle in Congress. Moreover, he has been tireless in his efforts to spread more of the tech economy, now too concentrated in places like Silicon Valley and the Boston region, to the heartland.

It is this passion to extend digital opportunity to more places and people that is behind his penning Dignity in a Digital Age (Simon & Schuster, 2022) and as such, it’s fitting that the book opens up with a discussion of the need for dignity for people in left-behind places in our economy. Khanna reflects on conversations he has had with individuals in places like rural Kentucky and what is being done and can be done to ensure that the digital economy does more to benefit places like this and the people living there...

One might wish politics was more of a menu, allowing voters to order from various columns of conservative, moderate, and liberal. There is indeed much to like about Congressman Khanna’s agenda, especially as it relates to stronger federal support for helping disadvantaged workers and regions, spurring greater levels of technological innovation, and raising taxes on the wealthy. It would be nice if voters could order only that, and not have it come with a heaping helping of anticorporate regulation, which would hurt innovation, economic growth, and U.S. competitiveness.

But either way, the book is an important read, if only to better understand the U.S. progressives’ take on digital policy issues.