Abundance Denied: Consequences of the Great Recession

This paper reassesses themes developed in the authors' Economic Abundance: An Introduction (Dugger and Peach 2009) in the context of the so-called "Great Recession." In this paper, we make several arguments. First, there is always a substantial gap between actual production and the capacity of the economy to produce. Second, the great recession widened the production gap, but did not change the basic relationship. Third, the anti-recessionary policies, adopted during the recession, were anti-abundance policies, for the most part. Fourth, almost by definition, short-term (cyclical) fiscal and monetary policy regimes do not address longer-term structural issues or the creation of widely shared abundance. Last, but not least, despite the great recession, and the myopic policy responses it generated, the abundant economy — based on a largely undamaged joint stock of knowledge — remains a genuine possibility.