Not at all a new observation. The Cambridge Keynesians of the post-WWII era deliberated various models of growth, income distribution and business cycles that h

Not at all a new observation. The Cambridge Keynesians of the post-WWII era deliberated various models of growth, income distribution and business cycles that had the curious property of assuming that the rate of growth is actually countervailed by the expansion of the capital stock. They assumed that modern capital goods were more fixed than variable, durable but also factor-specific and mostly inconvertible, hence a growing capital stock would actually lock you into path dependence and a higher rate of depreciation. The more you grow, the more you regress. The Kaldor-Kalecki nonlinear dynamic business cycle model, the Kaleckian profit equation and Robinson's growth model are probably the most interesting results out of that era that still retain an influence on heterodox thinkers. That said, one should be very wary of all such simplifying models since they all carry contestable assumptions. Nonetheless, they do pose intellectual curiosities. I don't know if Robert J. Gordon explores this. The Post's review mostly rehashes the more naive dystopian arguments, so I'll have to check.