Revisiting the history of Middle-Out Economics (with Michael Tomasky)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve lived in the shadow of trickle-down economics for over 40 years. During that time, our leaders unquestioningly embraced economic policies that prioritize the wealthiest and most powerful, with the idea that their wealth will eventually “trickle down” to everyone else.Of course, that wealth never has trickled down. Thankfully, our economic understanding has finally started to shift. This has been a landmark year in passing middle-out economic policies that prioritize the vast majority of working Americans over the wealthy few. In a future episode we’ll be discussing the middle-out research and policies that are making a real difference in people's lives, thereby changing the way we think about economic cause and effect. But before we look ahead to the glorious middle-out future, it’s important to revisit the history of middle-out economics via a conversation with journalist Michael Tomasky, author of a recent book detailing the rise of progressive economics in the United States. This episode originally aired on October 18, 2022 Michael Tomasky is a journalist and author. He’s top editor of The New Republic. He’s editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, as well as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. Twitter: @mtomasky The Middle Out https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671443/the-middle-out-by-michael-tomasky Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	2023 was a great year for middle out economics and in an upcoming episode
0:05.6	we're going to talk about some of our biggest middle out wins.
0:09.4	But before we do that, we thought we'd revisit a conversation we had with journalist and author Michael
0:16.5	Tomasky in 2022 about the history of Middle Out.
0:21.2	If you've ever wondered where the term middle out came from, this is the episode for you.
0:26.8	Enjoy. We knew or I knew that in order to defeat trickle down economics we had to build an alternative that
0:35.8	contrasted with it very sharply.
0:38.1	Economics is a set of numbers, but it's also a set of ideas.
0:41.6	The more people you fully include in the economy,
0:45.0	the faster and more prosperous and more inclusive, it grows.
0:48.6	Yeah, absolutely.
0:49.6	The economy is people.
0:51.6	Right. And that is why it grows from the middle L.
0:59.4	From the home offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics, with Nick Hanauer, the best
1:07.4	place to get the truth about who gets what and why. I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
1:24.3	On this episode, Nick, we're going to get a little personal and talk about one of your babies. Yeah. Yeah.
1:35.2	Tell us a little bit about your child known as middle out. Well, yeah, today on the pod we are gonna we're gonna interview our old friend Michael Tamaski on on middle out economics and now I'm really happy to get to do that,
1:53.8	but it has been a long road.
1:57.8	As you may recall, when Eric Lou and I wrote
2:01.6	our last book, The Gardens of Democracy,
2:05.2	we, you know, the first book we wrote,
2:07.9	which was the True Patriot, made the argument
	...

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