> I'm not at all sure what the author advocates here would have a big beneficial effect for the economy in general or for workers now working overtime in partic

> I'm not at all sure what the author advocates here would have a big beneficial effect for the economy in general or for workers now working overtime in particular. The author does a poor job explaining the macro-economic effects. You get a glimpse of the reasoning in the last few lines, where he states that the ratio of corporate profits over GDP doubled, from 6% to 12% of GDP from pre-80s to nowadays. We[1] have a problem with wealth distribution. I don't draw this problem in terms of fairness, because the concept of fairness is different from an individual to the next. We have a problem of income distribution that goes beyond the notion of fairness, becoming serious enough to be a menace to the stability of capitalism. A balanced economy has a thriving consumption component, which creates demand, and a thriving investment component, which drives supply. These go hand in hand. If there is too much demand, and investment falters, you get high inflation economies. However, if you get too much investment and demand falters, you suddenly have no investment opportunities and you get a slew of ill effects as capital is trying to find out where it can get returns. The most visible such effect is the appearance of investment bubbles and the crashes when these burst. People easily recognize the problems of investment-starved economies. The common citizen does not recognize the problems of demand-starved economies, because these are new. Here, we can witness first hand how young economic science is. Inflationary effects on supply starved economies were the norm in the XX century, so these are very well studied. Demand starved economies? Not so much. The US and the EU are the first ones (possibly, in a slightly different fashion, preceded by Japan). The causes for this do not lay squarely on politicians. It's easy to take a passionate view and find a target to blame. That is not the case, however. The current demand starved economy is caused by a big mix of factors. I've never ran the numbers, so take my opinion with a grain of salt: I'd wager the two biggest factors are: 1. Technological evolution, which increases demand while causing a deflation of costs (and consequently, on the circulation speed of money) 2. Globalization. We have moved a great deal of added value to developing countries, namely in the East. If Japan can be used as an example of what to expect, it will take two generations for demand to occur there. The globalization question is specially problematic. Not because there aren't enough resources for everyone. It is problematic because China is huge. The delay in consumption increase, coupled with huge inertia, can destroy western economies. The technological question is important, but it has been with us ever since the industrial revolution. We have been able to cope with it, and the same methods should apply. [1] I'm European. We are, however, in the same boat as North Americans in this problem, with slightly worse politicians. Europe is politically led by Germany. Historically, Germany is prone to fear investment starved economies so they are profoundly erring on identifying the issues and correctly acting).