In manufacturing, where mechanization and the use of chemical processes are much easier, it is easier to raise productivity than in services. In contrast, by their very nature, many service activities are inherently impervious to productivity increase without diluting the quality of the product.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the other forms.

We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.

A well-designed welfare state can actually encourage people to take chances with their jobs and be more, not less, open to changes.

Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.

If we are really serious about preventing another crisis like the 2008 meltdown we should simply ban complex financial instruments, unless they can be unambiguously shown to benefit society in the long run. This is what we do all the time with other products-drugs, cars, electrical products and many others.

Since the 1980s, we have given the rich a bigger slice of our pie in the belief that they would create more wealth, making the pie bigger than otherwise possible in the long run. The rich got the bigger slice of the pie all right, but they have actually reduced the pace at which the pie is growing.