In the Shadow of the Algorithm

Artificial intelligence is not a future event. It is already here, reshaping the way work is done, value is created, and power is distributed. While the rise of AI offers real potential for efficiency and innovation, it also carries the risk of deepening inequality and accelerating social dislocation unless we meet this moment with clarity and courage.

Throughout history, periods of technological and economic transformation have disrupted not only markets, but the structure of society itself. The transition from feudalism to capitalism in early modern Europe overturned centuries-old social hierarchies and concentrated new wealth in the hands of a merchant and industrial class. It wasn’t just an economic shift, it was a reordering of power, identity, and opportunity.

The Industrial Revolution remains one of the most powerful examples of capitalism’s creative energy and its capacity to generate pain alongside progress. It unleashed a wave of invention, productivity, and material wealth never before seen in human history. But it also gave rise to child labor, unsafe working conditions, and widespread poverty in the very places where industry was booming. The factories churned out prosperity, but much of it flowed upward.

Yet over time, societies responded. We didn’t abandon capitalism, we regulated it. We built public schools, enacted labor protections, enforced antitrust laws, and created the modern welfare state. Those decisions made markets work better, not worse. They enabled competition, productivity, and stability to coexist. In the United States, those reforms helped turn capitalism into an engine of middle-class opportunity, not just elite enrichment.

Later, the internet promised to flatten hierarchies and democratize access. Instead, it accelerated capital flight, gutted local economies, and enabled the rise of unaccountable digital monopolies. High-skill workers in knowledge hubs thrived while others watched their jobs disappear, their wages stagnate, and their communities unravel. The tools got smarter, but the system became less fair. And once again, public policy failed to keep pace. The result wasn’t a crisis of innovation, it was a crisis of trust.

Now we face a new transformation, one that may move faster and run deeper than anything that came before. Artificial intelligence is not just changing tools—it is changing the role of human labor in the economy. Unlike past revolutions that primarily affected manual work, AI threatens to automate complex cognitive and creative tasks: analysis, design, logistics, customer service, even teaching and programming. Many of these are the jobs that underpinned the modern middle class.

This isn’t a distant future. It’s already happening.

The question isn’t whether AI will transform the economy, it will. The question is whether our democratic institutions can respond in time to ensure that transformation strengthens capitalism rather than fractures it.

A healthy capitalist economy depends on broad participation and shared opportunity. When the gains of growth are concentrated, when markets tilt too far toward monopoly or automation without reinvestment, capitalism begins to lose its legitimacy. People stop believing that work leads to security. They stop trusting institutions. They disengage, or revolt.

We’ve seen this story before. Karl Marx didn’t invent class struggle, he observed it. He wrote in an era when the benefits of industrial capitalism were flowing upward, while millions of workers remained in grinding poverty. His critique gained traction not because capitalism was wrong, but because unregulated capitalism left too many behind. We would be wise to remember that lesson, not to reject capitalism, but to protect it from its worst tendencies.

That’s why this moment demands a serious conversation about economic distribution. Productivity gains from AI will be real. But without intentional policies, they will flow to those who already hold capital, owners of platforms, data, and computing power while workers see their jobs displaced or devalued.

Tax policy will be central. If AI allows us to do more with less labor, then the gains should be reinvested into the broader economy. We can use that revenue to fund universal access to education and retraining, to shorten the workweek, to support small businesses and entrepreneurs, and to ensure that displaced workers are not discarded. These aren’t handouts, they’re strategic investments in a more resilient and competitive capitalist economy.

If we fail to do this, the consequences won’t just be economic, they’ll be political. Alienation, extremism, and institutional decay don’t arise in a vacuum. They grow in the cracks of broken promises. We saw it when towns were hollowed out after factories closed. We saw it in the rise of conspiracy movements and populist backlash. And we will see it again if white-collar workers, long considered safe, begin to feel as expendable as the laborers of a century ago.

And yet, just when we need strong, responsive public institutions to guide this transition, we find them weakened, hollowed out by decades of neglect, undermined by disinformation, and increasingly under assault from nationalist movements that seek to dismantle government altogether. The Trump administration accelerated this erosion, stripping expertise from federal agencies, politicizing public service, and sowing distrust in the very institutions designed to serve the people. It is a strategy of subtraction at precisely the moment we need addition: more talent, more imagination, more public leadership equipped to govern through complexity.

Artificial intelligence is not just a tool. It is a force multiplier. It will amplify whatever system we embed it in whether that is a system of concentrated power and precarious labor, or one of shared opportunity and stability.

I believe in capitalism. I believe in the power of free markets, entrepreneurship, and innovation. But I also believe in democracy, the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and that good government has a responsibility to keep capitalism honest, to create rules that ensure competition, protect the vulnerable, and prepare people for what comes next.

This isn’t about resisting change. It’s about shaping it and making our nation stronger by doing so.

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About Andrew Flynn

Andrew is a Mt. Lebanon commissioner, public finance and policy expert, volunteer firefighter, and community advocate committed to building safer, more resilient, and better-connected neighborhoods. Through public service and hands-on experience, Andrew works every day to make a positive impact in our community.

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