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Global Bookmark offers long-form examinations of global trends and challenges, viewed through the lens of important new books.
Behind the Modern Malaise
For decades, workers have been missing out on many of the gains of economic growth, and countless analyses have been published to explain why. Though the problem is fundamentally economic, it cannot be understood without also accounting for technology, politics, and culture.
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Daniel Cohen, The Inglorious Years: The Collapse of the Industrial Order and the Rise of Digital Society, Princeton University Press, 2021.
Jan Eeckhout, The Profit Paradox: How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work, Princeton University Press, 2021.
LONDON – In describing recent economic history as “the inglorious years,” French economist Daniel Cohen’s title refers primarily to a problem that is also examined in the economist Jan Eeckhout’s book, The Profit Paradox. That problem, as Eeckhout puts it, is “wage stagnation and extreme wage inequality.” Over the past half-century, the situation for workers in most rich countries has deteriorated on average, setting this era apart from the 30 glorious years (les trente glorieuses) after World War II, when West Europeans, Canadians, and Americans enjoyed a near-miraculous period of sustained growth, including broad-based growth in real wages and higher living standards.