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Abstract The article presents the main features of the fourth industrial revolution based on some experts opinions, the most important papers delivered and debated at Davos World Economic Forum in 2016 on the theme of this revolution and some estimation regarding the impact/effects of this last phase of industrial development in the world.
Key words:
Industrial revolution, technology, innovation, jobs, growth, social impact
JEL Codes:
L16, L52, L53, 014, 015, 025, 033
1. The third or the fourth industrial revolution?
Once started in the mid eighteenth century with the invention of the steam engine, the industrial revolution witnessed several phases or steps that allowed the transition from a farming and feudal society to an industrial and capitalist society and then to post industrial or services society, with the gradual release of labor force from physical activity and mental efforts afterwards in favor of more striking creativity. Phases or cycles of industrial revolution entered the literature as the first, second, third industrial revolution and had certain characteristics related to the predominance of specific energy resources, technical achievements with major effects in economy, means of public transport developed or modernized. This year at Davos it has been much talk about the fourth industrial revolution within the World Economic Forum, but some consecrated authors such as Jeremy Rifkin, had considered previously that we are in front of the third industrial revolution and at the end of the second revolution, that would imply the third phase presented in the Table no. 1 is only an extension of the second phase. In Table no. 1, I made a short presentation of the main features of the industrial revolutions in the period 1760-2015.
Whether it is or not the third or the fourth industrial revolution, this new cycle is based on Internet and green energies, the first allowing easy access to information and easy trade for goods and services and the latest diminishing energy impact on the environment. Combining these two leads in the vision of Jeremy Rifkin in establishing the defining elements of the so-called new industrial revolution: firstly it would shift from fossil fuels to renewables; secondly it is going to transform the building stock of every continent into green microplants to collect renewable energies onsite; thirdly...