Lethargic growth, depressed employment, widespread job dissatisfaction and staggering debt – such is life in a western world that seems to have lost the habit of innovation that energised it for more than a century.
After a major loss of dynamism in the 1960s, productivity growth rates began dropping in most countries, falling by half in the US in the 1970s and more or less ceasing altogether in France, Germany and Britain in the late 1990s. It is urgent that these nations find a way back to their past dynamism.
But some prominent voices would change the subject. The important issue is inequality, they say. In Europe, it is estimated that one-quarter of private wealth is held by the richest 1 per cent; in America, the richest 1 per cent hold one-third. This wealth has ballooned, relative to national income, in countries where growth is slow; and the share held by the rich has risen in most nations over recent decades.