Revisiting Trickle-Down's Stubborn Refusal to Die (with Mark Blyth)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With a second Trump administration on the horizon, we’re bracing for a return to the same failed trickle-down policies that have dominated our politics for 50 years—policies that enrich the wealthy few at the top while leaving everyone else behind. That’s why we’re resharing our 2022 conversation with Mark Blyth, a political economist who explains why trickle-down economics refuses to die and how it continues to shape our world. In this episode, Mark exposes the myths behind these harmful ideas and makes a compelling case for a new economic paradigm. This episode originally aired on October 11, 2022. Mark Blyth is a political economist, professor, author and the Director of the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at Brown University. He is the author of several influential books, including Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea and Angrynomics (co-authored with Eric Lonergan), and he’s the co-author of a forthcoming book, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers. Further reading: Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers Angrynomics Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: The Pitch

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, pitchfork listeners, Goldie here and my, how quickly things can change.
0:06.9	A couple years ago when we talked with today's guest, Mark Blythe, the United Kingdom was in the midst of a conservative government who was trotting out old trickle-down policies again.
0:20.5	Well, we here in the U.S.
0:22.5	We're proudly in the middle of the Biden administration experimenting with middle-out economics.
0:29.4	And now, just two years later, there's a labor government back in the UK. Well, we here in the
0:35.2	U.S. are back to the Trumpist regime. So we thought it was a good time to
0:40.7	re-air our conversation with Mark Blythe about why won't trickle down die. We hope you enjoy,
0:48.7	or at least learn a little something. The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result
0:58.9	of decades of bad economic theory.
1:02.0	The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven't worked.
1:05.8	But what's the alternative?
1:07.5	Middle-out economics is the answer.
1:09.5	Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence. That's right.
1:19.8	This is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
1:28.8	Welcome to the show.
1:38.8	I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
1:43.6	I'm David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
1:54.9	Apparently, Nick, you're not satisfied just being a bomb thrower here in the United States.
1:59.8	You're off in the U.K. throwing bombs in the editorial pages, too, I see.
2:01.0	I am. I've been in the U.K UK less than a week and already antagonizing my friends.
2:06.0	Eric Beinhocker and I have a piece in the Guardian slash Observer criticizing the new government
2:15.1	here, the trust government for the criminal stupidity of this trickle-down
	...

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