MaintenanceThe economy of the future will resemble neither the past nor the present because the limits of the motivation of profit, ideological reference and driving force of capitalism, are becoming obvious, explains the American economist, a convinced Keynesian, in an interview with Le Monde.
Stephen Marglin, 83, is one of the rare economists to have perpetuated, since the Walter S. Barker professorship of the department of economics at Harvard University, the “radical” tradition of the 1960s, when a movement of economists critical of capitalism had emerged on American campuses. The triple crisis, economic, social and climatic, which is shaking the dominant system, gives him new reasons to assert his point of view.
The candidates for the French presidential election strongly oppose the weight of the State in the national economy. On the right, it is proposed to reduce the number of civil servants and public spending; on the left it is proposed to increase the salaries of teachers, caregivers, etc. Is a similar debate taking place in the United States as the midterms campaign begins?
It is a battle with three, even four protagonists. In 2021, the Democrats reached a cordial understanding between their progressive wing and the moderates. But they were unable to consolidate this agreement due to their weak position in the Senate. Opposite, the Republicans, supporters of spending less and taxing less (the rich), bowed to the Trumpists.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, led in the House of Representatives by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her three female colleagues from the “Squad” (Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib), and in the Senate by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, considers that the federal government is the essential element capable of advancing its vision of a just and equitable society, combating global warming, renovating infrastructure that is at the end of its tether and remedying the shortcomings of social protection.
The role of government in moving towards a fairer society begins with reforming the tax system. The wealthy are paying much less than they should, and much less than in the past, while the tax burden falls increasingly heavily on the middle and working classes. In his book Capital and ideology (Seuil, 2019), Thomas Piketty has documented the dramatic decline, since World War II, in the share of income of the wealthiest Americans collected by taxes – from more than 50% to around 30% today – and the concomitant increase in that levied on the incomes of the less advantaged half of the population – from less than 20% to around 25% currently.
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