ABSTRACT
The majority of rich world peoples have not experienced any growth in real incomes over the last 40 years. Stagnating growth is the bequest of extractive economic institutions as are debt, inequality, inflation, social conflict, international conflict and environmental degradation. From 2009 to 2019, it has been calculated that 50% of the growth in the world's wealth has gone to just 1% of the world's population. The rest goes to financial engineering such as dividend pay-outs and share buy-backs It is no wonder that, in the UK and the USA, total factor productivity and, with it, overall economic growth has slowed down. The growth of the financial sector in modern Western economies has been the direct result of 'market fundamentalism' the belief that markets are supreme and that you cannot improve upon flexible prices as an allocator of resources.
