![]() Progressives have tended to highlight issues like infrastructure, education, or manufacturing. When modern progressives have attempted to articulate a model of economic growth that challenges trickle-down, they have underplayed the centrality of the middle class. Without a clear explanation for how the middle class creates growth, the story is dismissed as nostalgia for a bygone era rather than a convincing case for how the modern, global economy works. But this story hasn’t been particularly compelling because we usually haven’t explained why these two facts are linked. Progressives often point out that in the middle of the previous century, the United States had both a strong and growing middle class and a strong and growing economy. It is a prerequisite for robust entrepreneurship and innovation, a source of trust that greases social interactions and reduces transaction costs, a bastion of civic engagement that produces better governance, and a promoter of education and other long-term investments. Beyond that, a strong middle class is a key factor in encouraging other national and societal conditions that lead to growth. A strong middle class provides a stable consumer base that drives productive investment. But in fact, the opposite is the case: The middle class is the source of economic growth. Politicians typically see the middle class as something to create with the gains of economic growth. To understand why, we must first grasp that current thinking and rhetoric about the middle class is backwards. It may not seem intuitive that the concept of “the middle class” is the opposite of trickle-down and an effective counterargument against it. Instead, it is a thriving and vibrant middle class that shows us the path. In that story, it isn’t the rich that lead the way to growth and prosperity. To challenge trickle-down effectively, progressives should counter with their own story about economic growth. However inadequate trickle-down is as a model for generating economic growth, elected officials fall back on it because they can understand-and sell-the simplistic logic of cutting taxes and regulations to provide incentives to workers, businesses, and investors to be more productive. But-even after producing only relatively weak growth during good times and then causing the Great Recession-trickle-down remains standing. The problems with trickle-down are legion. Otherwise we will remain on the defensive about whether our policies can create jobs and opportunity, and we’ll continue debating economic policy on trickle-down’s terms, which is a recipe for failure. To challenge trickle-down economics, progressives need to develop a compelling story that explains how to generate economic growth.
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