The Gap Between Rising Productivity and Wage Growth Is a Bipartisan Delusion

Progressive Democrats and “national conservative” Republicans are increasingly aligned on the failure of American late-stage capitalism. Real wages have been stagnant for decades, they say, even as productivity keeps going up. Economic growth is channeling bigger profits to owners of capital while failing to raise living standards for ordinary families. They don’t always agree on what to blame for this dysfunction – how much is due to free trade, say, as opposed to labor-saving technology, monopoly power or the unbounded greed of the capitalist class – but they no longer quarrel much about the disease.

This is a problem, and not only because the claims about wages, growth and how they relate to each other are wrong. That’s the least of it. The new consensus draws attention away from issues that actually need addressing. Worse, it suggests treatments that will cause the very sickness they’re meant to cure.