The economy is just stationary. It just repeats itself. The one glitch that could occur in this stationary state is that the population wants to increase its wealth by saving, even though the economy is stationary. That can't be good for social mobility. What I'm afraid of is that in such an economy, the same good jobs and high status occupations would repeat themselves year after year. And that kind of society would tend to be a hereditary oligarchy.
Robert Solow is 98 years old and a giant among economists. He tells Steve about cracking German codes in World War II, why it’s so hard to reduce inequality, and how his field lost its way.