"Piketty should explode that myth once and for all, although I am afraid that will not be possible. To put it bluntly, the vast majority of those who accumulate capital do not create jobs. Capital is accumulated more rapidly when economic growth is slow, and thus, it is in the interests of capitalists to keep it slow. That is why, as I shall discuss in a later post, the nation grew more rapidly and shared income more fairly in the era when the federal government taxed its citizens more heavily and put the money into labor intensive enterprises such as dams, schools, the interstate highway system, and yes, even wars. To allow capital to accumulate more rapidly will slow growth still further. That is exactly what has happened since the 1980s."
Doubtless, re so called slow growth, one is talking, here, of so called national economies', and western economies' slow growths. This has not at all been the case regarding, especially, Asian national economies, notably Japan in the 50s through 80s and the Tigers, and later China after 1980.
Capital grew rapidly, and some salaries have risen quite rapidly, by rapid economic growth, but just selectively, and mostly elsewhere than in the West where there has been stagnation, wages declines, and stubborn globalized capital gains, largely for globalized (ie not strictly Western) companies and elites, and globalized command capital Asian and Russian national champions and their elites.
I would have thought that almost anyone, including even Piketty, could see such things by now.
I guess that is rather what was meant, or what might be meant, by Thurow and others, by a zero sum game.
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