The economic strategies of populists are territorial: walls, immigration restrictions, and rules based on national origin. But populism’s rise in Europe as well as the United States is less a product of economic inequality per se or even of economic anxiety; it is a cultural backlash against urbanism and the values of openness, globalism, tolerance, and diversity that are the hallmark of great cities. [...]
The decline of the middle class and the broken escalator of social mobility are no fiction. Before the 2016 U.S. election, Le Monde published maps about the geography of disparities in the U.S. Did you know that the size of the middle class shrank by more than 7 percent between 2000 and 2013 in New England, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona? Some of these were red states, others blue. But the trend shaped the political narrative. [...]
There are times when rational, well-educated societies lose a sense of perspective, and become overly sensitive, reacting emotionally. We are at peace; the post-2008 recovery, although shallow, is underway. But the general atmosphere, conditioned by fear of terrorism, is pernicious. Studies show that people are poor judges of the risks they do face, exaggerating some which are highly unlikely, underestimating others for which the odds of probability are great. Meanwhile, the security state keeps expanding through a combination of rules, mandates, and direct expenditure. We have to look at what is on the front page of the news, and it is not the economy. Is it any wonder that people feel their way of life is under threat? [...]
Why is this necessary? National policies are spatially blind. National macroeconomic policy treats culture, geography, language, and religion as irrelevant at best, or as handicaps at worst, barriers to the smooth workings of economic rationality. After all, these are endowments which economic trends are unlikely to affect, for better or worse.
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