Collapse of the progressive economy: the future belongs to blue-collar workers

What the hell is a progressive economy?

It’s an awful title, probably chosen by the editors. The author Kotkin knows and does better.

"Progressive" makes it sound like the Republicans don't support it. There has been in-practice bipartisan support for the growth of the centrally planned economy.

It wouldn't surprise me if the US government has fairly direct control over more than half the financial flows in the US economy after including 2nd order effects; even though officially it is only around 40%. The political consensus has been "This is good, but we'd like to go higher" from the Democrats and "This is ok, but we'd like to scootch a little lower" from the Republicans.

It is hard to imagine a high performing economy that is controlled mostly by the US government. They are barely competent at running the key government institutions.

I'm not sure? My guess is that it's a term the author (or the blog) coined to push some right-wing political hobby-horses. If I had to take it seriously, I'd argue that what he's talking about is the DNC donor class - i.e. the big tech companies that signal for progressive causes as long as it isn't too closely related to their labor costs.

There's a dash of "AI will kill and eat everyone" here too, except the author seems to think that white collar workers will be unscathed while artists and programmers will be completely obsoleted. I don't buy that.