Concentration and Commodification: The Political Economy of Postindustrialism

• In Event: The American Political Economy in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

American economic development has been increasingly based on intangible and knowledge-based production since the 1970s. Rising industries depend on a highly (elite) educated workforce, geographic co-location, and production at scale. This in turn has created a small cadre of hyper-successful firms in winner-take-all industries. This growth model has had a variety of implications for the structure of the American political economy. We argue that this can be characterized along two dimensions - concentration and commodification. The winner take all nature of production has spilled into competition over elite education and desirable housing markets - both classic positional goods. This in turn has accelerated economic - and political - polarization between the small number of winning locations and professions and those left behind. In this paper we argue that this initially American phenomenon has spread to a number of other developed economies, particularly those with similar industrial models.

Authors

• Jane R. Gingrich, University of Oxford

• Ben William Ansell, University of Oxford