"Smith did talk about the invisible hand. But he also wrote about the “invisible chains” that structure people’s lives. He & his revolutionary friends understood that wealth inequality could become a type of invisible cage. He taught his readers a simple lesson: keep the power of the rich in check."

Both Pope Francis and economist @mazzucatom.bsky.social are highly critical of neoliberal forms of capitalism that have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the great majority of people." Read more: international.la-croix.com/news/ethics/...

Stock buybacks are one of the biggest scams in economic history—yet most people don’t know they exist. That’s why we made Trillion Dollar Heist, a comic that breaks it all down: buff.ly/4b9VvMl What’s the biggest corporate scam YOU think people should know about? Leave your reply in the comments 👇

If the dominant economic paradigm of our time is built on false assumptions about the nature of humans and societies, is it possible to fix it by tinkering with policies and laws? Or would we be better off to build a new paradigm, based on reality? evonomics.com/announcing-a... #sustainability

The economic evidence is clear: electing Republicans leads to increasing income and power concentration in fewer hand. Blair Fix presents striking historical data showing the rise of extreme inequality following Republican control of state legislatures. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/01/31/p...

In 2023 alone, the 19 richest American families captured a full 1% of US wealth — up from 1.2% to 2.2%. US household total assets: $180T. So ~$1.8T went to 19 families: ~$100B each. Received for just…owning stuff. $100B is a stack of hundred-dollar bills 68 miles high. bsky.app/profile/stev...

Author Steve Roth: "If you’re thinking that they “deserve” all that wealth and all that income just for owning stuff, because they’re “makers,” think again: between 50% and 70% of U.S. household wealth is “earned” the old-fashioned way: it’s inherited." Read more: evonomics.com/insanely-con...

Longer-term perspective on the rise of US oligarchy. Source: Economist Gabriel Zucman

Biologist David Sloan Wilson: "Ricardo's dream was to discover economic laws as universal and mathematically tractable as Newton’s laws of motion. He became so mesmerized by his models that he gave them priority over the more complicated real world—just like the neoclassical economists of today."

Interesting paper on the thought of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), precursor of Keynesian economics, neglected figure of the history of economic thought – the “stepfather of economics” – by @evonomics.bsky.social. evonomics.com/amazing-nort...

It makes moral and economic sense to tax rent-seeking. Read more: evonomics.com/a-tax-that-l...

Economist Eric Beinhocker and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer: "This “difference principle” helps makes clear why open and fair markets, diversity, and inclusive institutions are signal features of successful economies." Read more: evonomics.com/redefining-c...

Neoliberalism promised a rising tide that would lift all boats, but the 2008 financial crash exposed the truth: it wasn’t a rising tide — it was a zero-sum game, where gains for the few came at the expense of the many. Listen to @glgerstle.bsky.social explain on this week’s pod: bit.ly/GaryGerstle

Economist Geoffrey Hodgson: "Adam Smith is said to be the founder of modern economics. Yet, contrary to a widespread view, Smith regarded individuals as driven by moral motives as well as self-interest." Read more: evonomics.com/smith-and-da...

Author Steve Roth: “And in the U. S., roughly 60% of that wealth itself — the stuff that accrues income to owners, just for existing — is earned the old-fashioned way: it’s inherited.” Read more: evonomics.com/capitals-sha...

Read more by Tim O’Reilly: evonomics.com/rewrite-the-...

The dumbest business idea ever: maximizing shareholder value. Read "Why the Pursuit of Shareholder Value Kills Innovation" by Economist Chris Dillow: evonomics.com/pursuit-shar... [Credit Cartoon by Jonesy]

Don’t wait for global politics to fix climate change – we can do it ourselves: evonomics.com/woman-nobel-...

"Building on a decade of work by the Rethinking Economics student movement and with input from some 150 professors throughout the field, we have created a toolkit to design such programs: Economy Studies." evonomics.com/new-ways-to-... @rethinkecon.bsky.social

Professor Amitai Etzioni: "What is needed is a systematic pro-social economics, that combines appreciation for the common good and for others as well as for the service of self." Read more: evonomics.com/how-learning...

Economist Blair Fix: "Inflation is not purely a ‘monetary’ phenomenon. Inflation redistributes income." Read more: evonomics.com/the-truth-ab...

Historian @rutgerbregman.bsky.social: "Anybody who fears mass unemployment underestimates capitalism’s extraordinary ability to generate new useless jobs." evonomics.com/doubt-capita...

Author Yves Smith: "Short-termism, underinvestment, and a preoccupation with image management." evonomics.com/maximize-sha...

"Why do hardworking people with similar talents and training often earn such dramatically different incomes? And why, too, have these earnings gaps grown so much larger in recent decades? Almost no other questions have proved more enduringly fascinating to economists." evonomics.com/how-markets-...

Author Rutger Bregman: "No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there." evonomics.com/no-wealth-is...

Author Eric Liu: "Conventional wisdom conflates self-interest and selfishness. It makes sense to be self-interested in the long run. It does not make sense to be reflexively selfish in every transaction." evonomics.com/traditional-...

Evolutionary biologist David S. Wilson: "Let there be no more talk of unfettered competition as a moral virtue. Cooperative social life requires regulation. Regulation comes naturally for small human groups but must be constructed for large human groups." evonomics.com/death-invisi...

“Debunk the meritocratic argument on its own terms, by contrast, and all the defenders of inequality have left is libertarianism, a value system that has much less appeal among the American public than meritocracy.” evonomics.com/extreme-ineq...

I've updated this older post with the latest available data. evonomics.com/insanely-con...

The poorest 50% of Americans own less than 2.5% of the country's wealth. The "American Dream" is dying. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Income inequality is out of control. evonomics.com/the-end-of-u...

"Would it surprise you to learn that Scandanavia has higher density of millionaires and billionaires than the U.S? Not only is it easier to get rich in a social democracy but they are critical to the very institutions that have helped them getting rich..." evonomics.com/where-in-the...

Author Eric Liu and Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer "Our century is yielding a second Enlightenment, and the narrative it offers about what makes us tick, individually and collectively, is infinitely more sophisticated than what we got the last time around." evonomics.com/traditional-...

Stanford Economist Raj Chetty: "If one wants to revive the “American Dream” of high rates of absolute mobility, one must have an interest in growth that is shared more broadly across the income distribution." Read more: evonomics.com/the-end-of-u... #inequality

The true history of American prosperity has not been 'trickle down,' it has been 'bottom up and middle-out". Read more: evonomics.com/new-social-s... @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social @nickhanauer.bsky.social @goldyha.bsky.social

Economist Jonathan Rothwell: "Before Marx, Adam Smith provided a framework for political economy that is especially useful today. Smith warned against local trade associations which were inevitably conspiring “against the public…to raise prices...” evonomics.com/elites-want-...

Economist Susan Holmberg: "We won’t fix the problem until we address the nature of the corporation." Read more: evonomics.com/milton-fried... @annpettifor.bsky.social @mazzucatom.bsky.social @hboushey.bsky.social @arindube.bsky.social

Historian John Jackson: "The godfather of neoclassical economics ignored the market forces of discrimination and slavery." Read more: evonomics.com/milton-fried...

Where Mission Economy helped reframe how govts can tackle grand challenges, Mission Economics—my new Substack—aims to build a community of practice. As mission-oriented policies gain traction globally, we need spaces to develop these ideas together. Subscribe here ➡️ marianamazzucato.substack.com

It's almost impossible to grasp the magnitude of US wealth inequality & concentration: $100K saved for retirement is a 4.3-inch stack of $100 bills. $1M: 43 inches. $1B: 3,600 feet. 12 football fields. World's tallest building is 2,722 feet. Musk: $486B. 330 miles high. 60 Mt. Everests, stacked.

Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz: "Economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American achievement.” Read more: evonomics.com/nobel-prize-...

Economist Eric Beinhocker: "For almost 200 years the politics of the west, and more recently of much of the world, have been conducted in a framework of right versus left – of markets versus states, and of individual rights versus collective responsibilities." evonomics.com/the-deep-and... #econ

Author @steveroth.bsky.social: "In any case, the private sector is holding government-issued assets. Whether they consist of bonds, “cash,” or reserves, is it realistic to call that money originally spent into private accounts a “debt” for the government?" Read more: evonomics.com/isnt-time-st...

Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer: "The last 40 years of research across multiple scientific disciplines has proven, with certainty, that homo economicus does not exist." Read more: evonomics.com/how-to-destr... @goldyha.bsky.social @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social @nickhanauer.bsky.social

Economist Jason Collins: "We need to stop making glib assumptions about what other people want and how they can best achieve their objectives." Read more: evonomics.com/why-behavior...

Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton: "If working people are losing out because corporate governance is set up to favor shareholders over workers…then we need to change the rules.” evonomics.com/nobel-econom...

"in 1975, the richest 1/100th of 1% of U.S. adults (about 17,000 people back then) had $27M each, average (in 2018 dollars). In 2019, latest data available, they had $350M each — a thirteenfold increase. You can be sure it’s gotten even more extreme since then." evonomics.com/insanely-con...

Economists Dirk Bezemer and Michael Hudson: "An economy based increasingly on rent extraction by the few and debt buildup by the many is a feudal model." Read more: evonomics.com/finance-is-n...

Venture Capitalist Nick Hanauer: "You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when." America leads the world in guard labor. Read more by economist Samuel Bowles: nyti.ms/2XGxR65

"Because: people with lots of money don’t spend it. They just sit on it, like Smaug in his cave. The more money you have, the less of it you turn over in spending every year." - Author @steveroth.bsky.social. Read more: evonomics.com/insanely-con...

Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz: “Those with power used that power to strengthen their economic and political positions, or at the very least to maintain them. They also attempted to shape thinking, to make acceptable differences in income that would otherwise be odious.” evonomics.com/nobel-prize-...