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Nick Hanauer
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“While the degree to which human beings pursue that which they think is good for them has not and will probably never change, what they believe is good for them can change and from time to time has, radically.”
― The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
― The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
“Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective science. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and moral preferences and prejudices about status and power, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find persuasive stories to tell everyone else why our relative positions are morally righteous and good for everyone. Like, ‘we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not’. Like, ‘tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country’. For thousands of years these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is.”
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“What we think of as economic growth is best understood as the rate at which we solve problems. But that rate is totally dependent upon how many problem solvers - diverse, able problem solvers - we have, and thus how many of our fellow citizens actively participate, both as entrepreneurs who can offer solutions, and as customers who consume them. But this maximizing participation thing doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen by itself. It requires effort and investment, which is why all highly prosperous capitalist democracies are characterized by massive investments in the middle class and the infrastructure that they depend on. We plutocrats need to get this trickle-down economics thing behind us, this idea that the better we do, the better everyone else will do. It's not true. How could it be? I earn 1,000 times the median wage, but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff, do I? I actually bought two pairs of these pants, what my partner Mike calls my manager pants. I could have bought 2,000 pairs, but what would I do with them? [Laughter]”
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