July 5, 2025—Abundance, Wealth, and Economics: Part 1
US per capita GDP is over four times what it was in 1950-- after adjusting for price changes. That suggests that unparalleled abundance is possible. But GDP doesn’t tell us what is being produced and who can afford to purchase it. While productivity growth in the 1950s to mid-1970s was a “rising tide that lifts all boats,” it’s no longer widely shared among the population.
When the benefits of productivity growth flow increasingly to the top few percentiles of the population, that limits the ability of workers to quit a dangerous job (or worse yet, survive a layoff), to buy a home, or to send kids to college. The concentration of wealth, in particular, leaves a much smaller share of people making the big decisions about how our knowledge and resources are used. Should their be affordable health care for all—or mega-mansions and gold toilets for some? What could be abundance for an entire nation ends up putting most of the oranges (see illustration) in the hands of a few.
Concern with wealth and income concentration is not a matter of envy or class warfare — it’s an integral part of the whole affordability discussion. I’ll return to that in a later blog. But if you’d like to learn more about wage, income, and wealth inequality check out Chapter 8 of Work, Pay, and Sustainability. It provides a short but comprehensive discussion, with lots of references for those who want to dive deeper.
March 4, 2025
The world’s richest man is firing public sector workers at whim, as well as dismantling agencies that protect all workers’ rights. And it doesn’t appear to be a one-off. Demagogues with simplistic solutions are attracting worker votes worldwide. It’s high time for a new political economy of labor that acknowledges and incorporates the social costs of inequality—especially its effects on bargaining power.
Work, Pay, and Sustainability: A New Economics of Labor tackles rising inequality, insecurity, and climate change using a pluralist analysis. That means drawing on heterodox as well as mainstream economic approaches to explain more of today’s problems of work and pay. Technological change and globalization are important, but they affect all countries. Institutions and policies differ considerably by nation and across time. By focusing on the US, but with comparisons to other affluent nations, we can more clearly see how institutions frame and shape market behavior. The subject matter is broader than a traditional labor economics book in several ways.
xxxxxxxxxx