Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Splashing on populism like aftershave


At the Financial Times, Voters deserve responsible nationalism not reflex globalism by Larry Summers. The subtitle's a tingler: "Agreements should be judged not by how many barriers are torn down but whether people are empowered". Larry Summers, splashing on populism like aftershave.

The opening gambit:

It is clear after the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the Republican presidential primaries that voters are revolting against the relatively open economic policies that have been the norm in the US and Britain since the second world war.

Relatively open, compared to what?

It's not slightly open or reasonable open policies that people find objectionable. Trade policies after the second world war were reasonable and somewhat open. That is no longer the case. What we have now is forced-open policy, policy to delight the global megacorporation. Policy to submerge national sovereignty in a flood of claims that expanding free trade will improve the economy.

Whose economy? The global megacorporation.

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