The needless shutdown of the US government this month – and the accompanying brinksmanship on the issue of raising the debt ceiling – were only the most recent in a string of crises that have characterized the political and economic climate in much of the industrialized world since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. With persistently high unemployment, plodding economic growth, and frequent political turmoil, it's little wonder public confidence in our institutions has eroded so dramatically in many developed nations.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can have strong economic growth without shredding the social safety net. We can find a path to shared, sustainable prosperity by investing in the true engine of economic growth: the middle class. These are the policies real people believe in, whether they live in Boston, Bonn, or Bologna. These are the solutions progressives around the world fight for every day, and they led to the founding of the Center for American Progress 10 years ago.

Despite historic electoral victories in the United States, progressivism has sometimes struggled in recent years. Left-of-center parties in Germany, Australia, and Norway all lost elections this year. Since 2010, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has blocked legislative progress on virtually all issues in the US.

But the fact of the matter is that conservative politicians are out of ideas. We've tried their solutions. Their trickle-down ideology of austerity for the poor and tax cuts for the rich has dominated policymaking for the better part of three decades.

And what has it gotten us? Increasing inequality. Stagnating wages. One in four American children living in poverty, and one in six in Spain and one in 10 in the United Kingdom. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And yet today's conservatives call for more of the same.

That's why it's important for progressives from around the world to recognize our common challenges and share ideas across borders. This week, CAP will celebrate a first decade that saw some major successes, but we will also come together to look soberly ahead to the next decade, and to the challenges we will face.

We know we must take immediate action to create strong, shared economic growth. While the US has seen more than three straight years of job growth, the fruits of the economic recovery have not been widely distributed. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty have found that 95% of income gains from 2009 to 2012 accrued to the top 1%, while middle-class families have struggled to make ends meet and conservatives have sought to gut programs for the poor.

Making smart, immediate investments in infrastructure, education, and clean energy will help bring down unemployment and boost growth. In the European Union, unemployment is calamitously high in many countries, and is particularly high among young people. Europe must make its own strategic investments before an entire generation is left behind for good.

Stronger growth will also help address another central challenge: rising income inequality. Although the late 1990s saw robust wage growth even at the bottom of the income ladder, between 1979 and 2007, the share of income going to just the top 1% of US earners more than doubled, while the share going to low- and middle-income earners declined, according to the Congressional Budget Office. High rates of income inequality negatively affect intergenerational mobility – the likelihood that children born into modest circumstances will move up the economic ladder – and widen the gap in educational outcomes between rich and poor.

Conservative dogma holds that the economy grows from the top down – that if you allow the rich to get richer, they will use their gains to invest in job creation. But the data on income inequality puts the lie to that story. That's why progressives believe we ought to grow the economy from the middle out, rather than from the top down. It's the only way to reverse the rise in income inequality and build broad, long-term prosperity. That means building human capital through education and job training, promoting entrepreneurship, and making significant public investments in research and development, all policies included in CAP's recent blueprint on building a middle-class-led economy, "300 Million Engines of Growth". A progressive economic agenda will have impact beyond measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and average income. Strong, sustainable, shared economic growth is a pre-requisite for overcoming social inequalities and mustering the political will to tackle large-scale issues like immigration reform, fair trade, and climate change.

The data may vary from one nation to another, but some of the challenges we face are remarkably similar, and so, too, are the best solutions to those challenges. We all face a difficult road over the next decade. But armed with the lessons progressives learned over the last 10 years, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies, we are confident that we can continue to make real progress for real people.