I think the best explanation for what happened was globalization and its accompanying political movement in the West (neoliberalism). Productivity kept growing

I think the best explanation for what happened was globalization and its accompanying political movement in the West (neoliberalism). Productivity kept growing in the West at the cost of shifting labor-intensive jobs to China and other emerging economies. This in turn depreciated the value of labor back at home. With the majority of economic value being produced by large corporations and a small elite of individuals responsible for managing them, this elite was able to strong-arm the government into lowering taxes, eliminating tariffs and installing all kinds of preferential treatment to whoever could extract value of this global supply chain. I was also disappointed that the discussion about politics and globalization was very superficial.