roducerism—the notion that economic policy should follow the priorities of those who make things, not those who use them—has a long, storied, and checkered history in the Anglo-American world. The United States is generally considered a consumerist society, but a strain of pro-worker sentiment has run through English and American economic thought for more than a century.
Producerism is usually found alongside populism and has enjoyed a marked comeback recently, as the Trump administration has promoted nativist and protectionist policies that have had rhetorical, if not functional influence. But the pro-worker producerism perspective has generally lacked serious intellectual support, apart from certain precincts of the far left. In The Once and Future Worker, a provocative but well-reasoned manifesto for reinvigorating the labor market, Oren Cass corrects that oversight and furnishes the needed intellectual backbone.
Cass, a Manhattan Institute fellow and domestic policy director for the Romney campaign, believes American society is “teetering atop eroded foundations, lacking structural integrity, and headed toward collapse.” His solution? Rather than the shopworn slogan “putting America to work,” Cass proposes to put workers to America.
He calls his bold thesis a “working hypothesis” (pun pardoned): “that a labor market in which workers can support strong families and communities is the central determinant of long-term prosperity and should be the central focus of public policy.”
Cass castigates both the left and the right for failing to deliver for workers, noting that Republicans' prioritization of growth amounts to benign neglect of labor, while Democrats trample markets and privilege the demands of environmental and identity groups and labor unions over workers themselves.
Cass quotes Adam Smith's famous maxim in The Wealth of Nations that “consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.” But despite producing world-changing innovation and lifting billions from poverty, Smith's time-tested maxims are myopic, in Cass's view.
“Work is meaningful,” he posits, “because of what it means to the person performing it, what it allows him to provide to his family, and what role it establishes for him in his community.” He is therefore dismissive of faddish notions like the universal basic income, which he characterizes as the wealthy paying everyone else to go away.
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