Reddit reviews The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

> Disastrous job creation is one of the most central/pressing problems in India today. If not the most one.
>

I agree with you. But it takes a special kind of genuis to declare that there is an easy policy fix to it. The fundamental problem is with treating "job creation" as an end in itself. It isn't. It is an outcome contingent on multiple economic factors -- increasing demand, growing productivity, a burgeoning economy, and so on and so forth. Where is this demand, pray tell? We keep reading of a global demand slump, and of inflated debt further reducing people's ability to spend. Productivity? This nice, well-acclaimed book makes a very convincing case that the world's productivity is no longer growing. Productivity growth fell steadily over the last two decades and came to a complete standstill around 2014. The author posits that nothing short of a miracle is going to reverse this trend.

Export-oriented growth has been the chief mechanism through which Asian economies achieved rapid economic growth, the build-up of industrial strength, the creation of skilled jobs, and the reduction in poverty. Best of luck trying to replicate that today. We're essentially treading new ground when it comes to these things, and may have to be the first country that does it based on domestic consumption alone.

And it's not even that the government is sitting on its hands. Infra development has picked up. Make-in-India, while not exactly a model of success in the civilian sector, has shown some real success in defence manufacturing. Much of the world still sees India as the best emerging market to investment in, and the government has pursued significant reforms in enabling that investment. But no, the 149 words I've written based on cherry-picked soundbytes are the final verdict on the matter!

>People who vote for Modi should just come clean that it's all about Hindutva and the rest of it is garbage nonsense excuses.

Yes sir. Whatever you say, sir. After all, you know me better than I know myself.

>A federal carbon tax will never be passed by the government and really the carbon tax does decrease emissions a little bit but it's more useful for generating money for the government.

Will a federal carbon tax ever be passed by the government? I think it's unlikely in the near term, but in the medium or long term? Who knows? As to the scale of emissions reduction, it would obviously depend on the scale of the tax! Admittedly we don't have much empirical data on this, but insofar as the demand curve slopes down, a carbon tax should be as effective as the rate it is set at. As for "it's more useful for generating money for the government", this is a seperate policy goal than reducing carbon emissions. The two aren't comparable as they have different metrics for success (revenue generated vs emissions reduced).

>Tesla's success has already spurred investment and research by all the other car companies without coercion or extra tax dollars.

How would you even prove this causal link? The fact that Tesla can't even fill its orders suggests that Toyota's success with the Prius could be just as important if not moreso. Either way, Tesla operates in one sector of the economy - The transportation sector is responsible for about 15% of emissions, and I'd bet that personal motor vehicle emissions are not even half that. The point is that Tesla will not spur research and development in the development of cleaner factories, for example.

>Tesla has accelerated the pathway to sustainable transportation by 8-10 years.

Again, don't know how you would prove this claim.

If you're looking for people to reject government spending based on "coercion", I don't think you're going to find many friends here. Neoliberals have an axiomatic belief that government is necessary. If you're interested in some historical policy successes of the US government (which frankly is one of the less effective governments in the developed world), I'd suggest you read this book. It does a good job outlining the technological innovation of the private sector as well as policy areas where it fell short and where government intervention was required.

> Productivity growth is on the decline, forgot the word growth at the end, but you obviously knew what I meant.

I did not know what you meant. I find it dangerous to assume, especially on the Internet, so I asked.

Sources of slower productivity growth are a matter of some controversy. Here is some survey coverage. I wouldn't say anyone has a convincing explanation yet, but I wouldn't say that the data really support the conclusion that rising inequality is to blame. It's probably a factor, but a relatively small one.

The theory I am most partial to is Gordon's, from The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Summary: productivity growth above the 1% level we're experiencing now only occurs when you have a major technological shock that creates and destroys industries. The last one of those we had was the Internet, and we've captured the low-hanging productivity fruits from that already.

The good news on this front is that we have a pretty good idea what the next big thing is. The bad news is that it's AI, and the disruptions to labor from this technological shock are going to be huge.

> I dont include finance because finance is not the economy.

Disdain for finance is trendy these days, but I find it quite dubious to proclaim one kind of service work is productive and another is not. Is law the economy? Politics? Rather a lot of GDP is in those fields, and I don't know how you can draw the line in an unbiased way. Probably you'll find that some types of finance you like, and other types of finance you don't.

Ultimately, I think it's right and proper for the market to decide.

The Fourth Revolution, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge.

In Defense of Global Capitalism, by Johan Norberg.

The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon.

The Road to Serfdom by F A Hayek.

Asquith, by Roy Jenkins.

This is a weird one, but Woodrow Wilson by John Milton Cooper Jr. This influenced me a lot, but it obviously won't have the same effect on everyone.

> So you support corporate subsidies?

Yes insofar that I support the government assisting and propping up businesses that provide goods and benefits for the betterment of America. It is (and has been) a very beneficial practice for American industry, workers, and finance since the 1940's. A good book I'm reading about on the subject (among other things) but have not finished yet.

> Just in areas you agree with?

I prefer in areas I agree with but I understand the need for compromise and concession in the areas I don't.

Not just the US, almost all nations had heavily regulated monopolies at the time. All nations also deregulated at roughly the same time as well (for internal traffic at least).

That said there have been some intriguing numbers that while deregulation had some initial gains, the later changes (aka cutting of food, free baggage allowance, decreases in comfort, etc) were not actually reflected in a real dollar cost decreases. You can read The Rise and The Fall of American Growth for the actual argument (that is all cited and done better than my memory can allow).

> tl:dr; i suspect we will see greater than historical market returns. due to the increase in productivity!

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691147728/

> Strangely, it seems like that rate of progress has slowed down considerably in the 21st.

People who study these things are taking note. I haven't read this (yet), but it's on my list: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691147728

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) http://www.amazon.com/The-Rise-Fall-American-Growth/dp/0691147728

Go for "Rise and Fall of American Growth".

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691147728

>The 1982 recession was worse than the 1991 or 2001 ones, so it took more growth to recover from.

Yes, and the 2008 recession was even worse, yet the economic bounceback was anemic. If the economy's ability to recover from recessions had remained statically dynamic for the past 30 years then there should have been a huge uptick in growth between 2009-2012ish. But there wasn't, and the rebound from the Great Recession was even worse when you remember that recoveries ought to be commensurate with the severity of the preceding recession. The pattern for the past 30 years is that the economy takes longer to recover from each successive recession even when accounting for the severity of that recession.

>Well yeah, because the postwar boom ended. That was never going to last forever.

Yes, but our expectations for individual opportunity and future quality of life increases are still based on those post-war norms of 3.6% GDP growth, 2.2%ish Real GDP/Capita growth, 2.2% productivity growth, high levels of job creation......etc. But it's very possible that those norms will never return.. And if people are forced to live in a world of drastically diminished economic growth in which normal working class people have fewer opportunities and there is less opportunity for upward mobility due to decreased economic churn then it would not be unrealistic to expect them to react by voting for angry populists who promise simple solutions for complex problems.

In fact, I'd say that has already begun.

I didn't read either of those two, but I did read Zero Sum Society and Zero Sum Solution when they were released. I know he gets a lot of flack for some of his ideas, but the issues he was popularizing at the time are still valid, IMO.

In fact, a recent Freakonomics episode featured Robert Gordon, author of The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which echoes some of the central themes of Thurow's.

Namely, that in a society with a low growth pattern, for one group in a society to prosper it inherently means another group must have their fortunes decline. Thurow predicted the growth in wealth inequality in the US, as the wealthiest would have their net worth increase at the expense of other stratifications of society.

Thurow is a very easy to read economist, which can be seen as both a strength and a weakness. I do hope you give some of his writings a chance. I have a great fondness for Thurow as a writer, even if I disagreed with some of his views.

One text on this topic that I've seen receive good reviews and have placed on my reading list is The Race Between Education and Technology, written by the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. Here's Daron Acemoglu and David Autor's review of it.

edit: another well received text would be Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Here's William Nordhaus's review of it.

Read [The Rise and Fall of American Growth] (https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691147728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485974006&sr=8-1&keywords=rise+and+fall+of+american+growth). We aren't more productive.

They wont. By the time these technologies become mainstream (read affordable) it will be close to a generation. Like almost everything - it will be phased in.

Must read book - The Rise and Fall of American Growth

Must listen podcast - #772 Small Change

This is an excellent book for understand the shift in the American economy and the profound social and political changes it has brought

Here's a short and easy to read e-book that gives a good understanding of the economy and its multiple parts

And I wouldn't bother with anarcho communists, they're basically required to be profoundly economically illiterate to ascribe to their ideology, I've had several of them tell me that Stalin was pro-capitalist because state property is exclusionary and therefore private property, obviously ignoring the massive contradiction with calling state property private property.

Understanding economics is the beginning of sound political thought, most terrible ideologies are conceived from dismal understanding of the economy supplemented by baseless rhetoric.