Nice read, but completely oblivious to the central role of FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate) industries, plus industrial stagnation, that has obtained since

Nice read, but completely oblivious to the central role of FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate) industries, plus industrial stagnation, that has obtained since the 70s in creating today's ridiculous wealth gap. I don't have the exact statistics on hand but finance represented something like 16% of GDP in the 70s compared to now around 40%. PG's a techno-capitalist and he wants to say that somehow technology has created all this wealth, but it's simply false. Tech has only been able to "create wealth" because of the overheated financial forces behind ridiculous valuations, stock prices unhinged from any fiscal reality, etc. If we were to actually price tech on the money it makes it would pale in comparison to the giants of yesteryear. There's an interesting, but now practically unknown, marxist economist named Paul Sweezy who correctly predicted in the early 70s that the monopoly capitalism of the time would fade into permanent stagnation -- closing factories etc -- with increasing financialization of the economy. Pretty much nailed it.