In the 1980s, though, the idea that “greed is good” took hold in the United States and we turned away from prosperity. We accepted the idea that what was good for financial markets was good for everyone and structured our economy to drive stock prices ever higher, convincing ourselves that “the market” of stocks, bonds, and derivatives was the same as Adam Smith’s market of real goods and services exchanged by ordinary people. We hollowed out the real economy, putting people out of work and capping their wages in service to corporate profits that went to a smaller and smaller slice of society.
