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Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

How a New Economics Went Mainstream (with Suzanne Kahn)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over the past few decades, economists have gathered a lot of empirical evidence supporting the underlying truth of middle-out economics: that a thriving middle class is the cause of economic growth. Our friends at the Roosevelt Institute have produced a new report which outlines the events that led to our new understanding of how the economy really works. Suzanne Kahn, Vice President of the Think Tank at the Roosevelt Institute, joins us to talk about what's in the report and share how the progressive economic policies of the Biden Administration could mark a lasting shift away from neoliberal, trickle-down economics and toward a new era of middle-out economics. Suzanne Kahn serves as the Vice President of the Think Tank at the Roosevelt Institute, where she oversees and manages projects to develop critical research and policy to rebalance power in our society and economy. Previously, Suzanne was Roosevelt’s director of education, jobs, and worker power and the Great Democracy Initiative. Her research and writing focus on building a network of robust public goods—for example public higher education—and labor organizations that together can empower workers to counter corporate power in the labor market and public sphere. Suzanne Kahn @SuzMKahn Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinst Think Tank at the Roosevelt Institute @RooseveltFwd Sea Change: How a New Economics Went Mainstream https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/sea-change Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0

The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.

0:10.0

It's time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down.

0:15.5

Middle out economics is the answer.

0:17.8

Because Wall Street didn't build this country.

0:20.1

Great middle class built this country.

0:22.2

The more the middle class thrives, the better the economy from the middle out.

0:42.0

Welcome to the show.

0:44.0

So Goldie, today we're going to talk to Suzanne Kahn, who serves as Vice President at the Roosevelt Institute,

0:57.1

an organization we work closely with, and she's here to talk about their new report, which is called C change, how a new economics went mainstream.

1:10.0

And I think you and I would have a lot of, you know, like we would have a lot to say about the report itself.

1:18.2

I think our analysis of the sea change would take a different form or I mean not we would

1:26.2

fundamentally it would overlap but it not quite the same we'd probably give ourselves a

1:31.3

little more credit.

1:32.6

Yeah, well, and some different kinds of things

1:35.6

in a different order and so on and so forth.

1:37.9

But here's the thing that is 100% correct

1:41.9

about the report is that there has been a sea change.

1:45.2

We're in the middle of it right now.

1:47.2

We are in the middle of a profound sea change.

1:51.8

And in fact, Nick, you and I've we've actually been writing about this for an

1:57.1

upcoming publication we feel that we are we're in a middle out moment.

2:02.0

Yeah but but you know it was a billion little things happening

...

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