If you want to understand the state of the market-fundamentalist right, I highly, highly recommend this short essay from Anne Rathbone Bradley in the new @ISI @ModAgeJournal symposium on the humane economy. isi.org/modern-age/hum…
Bradley's definition of a "humane economy" focuses on "greater output" and "greater choices, not just in coffee tables but for all goods and services that we need and want." 
She acknowledges that "male wages did begin to decline in 1973," which she attributes in large part to women entering the labor force, and says, "this is a good thing for families" that "allows them greater choices."
She actually suggests that increased manufacturing-sector productivity is why "you can purchase a coffee table on Amazon and have it delivered to your front door in a few days," which is hard to square with the actual places Amazon coffee tables tend to be manufactured...
The policy prescriptions, you will be unsurprised to learn, are "to reduce the size and scope of government in every [EVERY!] direction." This means we should "repudiate" the war on drugs, the war on poverty, "and general government intervention in and regulation of industry."
"Allowing markets to direct innovation will," Bradley assures us, "provide families with choices that best suit them."
There's an internal consistency here: Reducing government indiscriminately will lead to markets offering a certain kind of choice which will lead to gains in things like quickly-delivered coffee tables. And if that's your definition of "humane economy," mission accomplished.
Fortunately, wide-variety-of-cheap-coffee tables (most of which seem to fold out so you can eat dinner in front of the TV) is almost no one's definition of a humane economy. At which point market fundamentalism falls apart (and so will that coffee table, in a couple of years...).
Here's my own contribution to @ISI @ModAgeJournal's Humane Economy symposium. "Good luck spotting the difference in well-being between a society of modest, boxy televisions and one of wall-spanning panel displays." isi.org/modern-age/hum…
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