Robert Kuttner — The Hidden History of Prosperity

How to break out of this vicious circle? How to make the economic plight of working families the core concern that it ought to be? How to restore constructive government to a leading role in that project? The obstacles to reclaiming a fairer society have little to do with immutable characteristics of the new, global, digital economy. They are mainly political.... 

Thanks for the history lesson, you might say, but what does all this have to do with the present-day economy? Thomas Piketty, in one of the year’s most celebrated economics books, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, demonstrates that the tendency of wealth to concentrate is an inherent characteristic of a capitalist economy. But, Piketty adds in passing, the exception is national emergencies such as wars.

Today, we do not have a war, but we do have an existential emergency of climate change. The risks of disastrous floods, droughts, extreme weather, and new forms of pestilence are compounded by the dismal condition of our infrastructure. A program of public investment aimed at resilience as well as a green transition could produce many of the same distributive benefits as the Good War. It could restore a sense of our common fate as Americans and reclaim faith in democratic government. That, of course, will take far more political leadership than we’ve seen lately....

The reformism of the Progressive Era and the solidarity of World War II may seem like ancient history. But it is becoming ever harder to deny the climate emergency, and its twin, the infrastructure shortfall....

The stakes of this struggle go well beyond the income distribution and the health of the middle class. At issue is what kind of democracy we have. In recent years, concentrated economic power has led to concentrated political power.

The alternative is a broadly based and broadly legitimate government, where the challenges of climate change become the basis for restoring shared prosperity and more democratically accountable government. Belatedly, Americans will surely demand that government protect them from rising seas, parched farmland, and weird storms. If the government that provides that protection is a narrow, corporate--dominated elite, then we will go even further in the direction of an authoritarian state.

The practical question becomes how on earth to make this vision of a World War II–scale transition into plausible politics....

Sooner or later, the existential threat that we all face will require a vast mobilization of public resources and a restoration of public purposes. A rendezvous is waiting to happen between the climate emergency and the need for good jobs and careers. Perhaps new social movements will make this dream a mainstream cause.

Robert Kutner connects two of the dominant trends of the time — inequality and climate change.

 The American Prospect Articles
The Hidden History of Prosperity
Robert Kuttner