There are certainly a lot of pieces to the puzzle, and lots of opinions on what caused what, but it can't be denied we had a timespan in our history that lasted several decades where we had high marginal tax rates and relatively low income inequality. During that time, wages of everyday workers kept pace with increases in productivity and general working conditions for everyday Americans improved. My understanding is there is pretty strong agreement among economists today that decreasing taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, weakening labor protections, and general deregulation have all contributed over the past several decades to erode that progress along with a large shortfall in public investment.
Honestly, I think the public investment is the most important piece right now. I'd prefer to do it funded by finding ways to tax the wealthy, but if we can't do that I'm also perfectly happy to simply accomplish it through deficit spending as well.
My parents reminded me (being war babies), that during WWII women were rapidly backfilling jobs left by men, and not only that, but they were paid less than the men they replaced. Factories were co-opted for war production, and food and fuel of all sorts was rationed for 4 years. Not much profiteering in that environment.
That being said, I'm all for the government being the leadership portion of economics, since that gives a single vision to rally around. I'm also for large public works, where it takes an immense amount of capital
AND labor. What I'm against, is the money going to the government without a solid plan. We've seen that money and national level management of it doesn't mix. Nation governments should think big, provide oversight for the money, then let the businesses that perform the work worry about the rest. A good example are all the new space companies popping up after NASA allowed it. That technology will trickle down to other areas. Lead and inspire, not do the work.
Just for starters, what I'd like to see is something like 2 percent business loans for companies to modernize assembly lines, and/or grants to advance nuclear fusion power technology. I can almost hear Elon Musk banging on the door to help out.
It would also be a perfect opportunity to look at ecology as a national project. Cleaning up the mess is going to be cost prohibitive, but with low interest loans, companies will find a way to make it work.
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