The Guard Economy Keeps Us All Down

Samuel Bowles is an unappreciated yet wise economist who runs the Santa Fe Institute, a radical hotbed where people with big brains meet and talk about issues. I read in the Santa Fe Reporter about one of Bowle’s theories, which intrigued me.

He states that in the US, one in four people are in the business of guarding other people’s wealth. Whether they work as a private security guard for a gated community, or a rent-a-cop in a shopping mall, their job is to keep the rich rich by keeping the poor at bay.
Bowles speculates that we lose millions of dollars in productivity because so many of us are doing the work of guarding, instead of creating new businesses or doing other valuable things. He says what he calls ‘guard labor’ supports the beat down economy. These are the marginalized, the workers who sadly, in most cases will pass along their poverty to their kids. The SF Reporter story was titled “Born Poor,” cites Bowle’s study.