Chapter
List of figures and boxes
Introduction. A decade after the Western financial crisis
Why no revival of growth?
The state and the zombie economy
Part I . The state we’re in
False dawns and flawed forecasts
2. Productivity in decline
The deterioration in productivity
The impact on living standards
Productivity: investment and innovation
Productivity controversies
The UK productivity puzzle
The meaning of innovation
Innovation and productivity
Innovation and production
The state’s role in R&D – and its neglect
4. Why investment matters
The decay in net business investment
Why investment still matters
Part II. The Long Depression
5. The problem of profitability
The puzzle of low investment
Resolving the low investment puzzle
From boom to slump: a crisis of profitability
How the crisis of profitability curtails business investment
Investment languishes despite rising individual company profits
The intractability of low profitability
The intellectual challenge
Part III. How we got stuck
The moderated business cycle
The atrophy of economic dynamism
Creative destruction drives social productivity
The decline in business and job turnover
Less creative destruction
The rise of the zombie economy
A contained depression is no better than its predecessor
9. The intellectual crisis of capitalism
The intellectual retreat from change
The ubiquity of business uncertainty
Shifting views on uncertainty, the future and change
The ebbing of Enlightenment values
The diminishing of the human
The economic impact of Enlightenment values
A cultural aversion to restructuring
10. Discomfort with change
Heightened fixation on risk
The ascendancy of techno-pessimism
The mantra of sustainability
11. The appeal of muddling through
The depoliticisation of economic intervention
The discrediting of state economic policies
TINA and the rise of technocratic governance
… and through internationalisation
12. The limits of muddling through
13. Escaping the Long Depression
The state and the Second World War
The great evasion: political obstacle to change
Creating the political climate for restructuring