Economics has many theories. Applying Economics is about picking the right mix of theories such that good, Muth Rational, policy prescriptions are made.



Delong writes- 'According to standard economic theory, redistribution only comes about when a country’s exports require vastly different factors of production than its imports. But there are no such differences in today’s global economy.' The 'standard econ theory' he is referring to is lacks descriptive or prescriptive power because local Public goods and externalities and network effects determine the marginal product of factors of production. These in turn depend on a Pareto Law ranking of 'Tiebout models'- i.e. local fiscal policy/property regime mixes- such that some 'hubs' of finance or innovation or Jurisprudential Schelling salience attract not just economic rent but something one can only describe as 'chrematistic multipliers'- i.e. rising p/e ratios.



Thus there will be 'deplorables' in a polity who, being far from the hubs in some sense or other, do in fact suffer a greater loss than the fortunate gain. In other words, there is no Hicks Kaldor improvement. Economics does have the tools to describe this but can't be bothered because Professors prefer to just recycle their old paper and students prefer to pretend to be extending their Professor's Research Program while publishing Junk Social Science papers for others of their ilk to cite in a Freemasonry of grubbing for tenure.



Let us now consider Delong's four arguments-

1) Pinning blame on foreigners or immigrants means either committing to certain policies or, like Karl Leuger (the Anti Semitic Austrian politician) making it clear that only foreigners or immigrants who support you are fine upstanding people while anyone who opposes you is in the pay of those evil furriners.

Anti Globalisation is different, however, from Anti Semitism because ultimately that poison did seep into people's minds. Leuger would probably have been horrified by what Hitler did. Yet, he bears much of the blame because he helped create that noxious atmosphere in which Hitler's evil had its genesis.

By contrast, there is no reason why there should not be 'Tiebout sorting' such that different countries can have a different material culture based on non tariff barriers. Economists assume that these are always either 'cheating' or else 'rent seeking'. The truth is quite different. Maybe Rome shouldn't have burger joints. Perhaps the British should be allowed to keep their beloved NHS. There may be good reasons why National Sovereignty should be restored retrospectively despite binding Treaties which unwittingly tilted the balance of power to Corporations.

Economic theory suffers no great scandal or damage by mix and matching existing theories so as to describe and prescribe for Real World preferences. This is not the same at all as endorsing an evil racialist ideology which was based on Hateful Slander & Pseudo Science.



2) People are as worried about chrematistic (wealth) effects as they are about slow economic growth. Moreover, they are concerned with something Biological or Cultural which Econ is not fine grained enough to capture. It is quite unfair to say we are looking for scapegoats. We don't want any innocent to be killed or unjustly deprived of their property. Even Bannon, who reads Girard, is not baying for the blood of Muslims. There are plenty of decent people who voted for Trump. Unlike Hitler's Germany, hardly any of us harbors genocidal hatred of foreigners or immigrants. Perhaps I am wrong. If so, there are worse things out there than Trump or even Le Pen.



There are Econ theories which can tackle Chrematistic issues and there is a Mechanism Design which can redistribute positional goods in a manner which boosts allocative and dynamic efficiency. Standard Econ analysis may be too lazy to do the job but this is a failure of the Academo-Bureaucratic nexus. Let's start ridiculing Econ Professors every time they say something silly. Maybe they'll get the message.



3) In the Thirties there were two successful ideologies predicated on genocide. The Bolsheviks had successfully murdered or imprisoned or chased away an entire class of people. 'Class War' meant actual war- killing actual human beings. The Nazis went one step further. They killed people on the basis of some utterly bogus 'racial' origin.



The situation we are in now is completely different. America has had a very successful 2 term President whose father was foreign. Apart from Japan, every single traditionally Democratic 'Global North' country has senior politicians of foreign origin.



It is true that 'standard Econ theory' has been lazy and stupid and more concerned with virtue signalling than alethic describing and prescribing, but we can use Google to find out in 5 minutes why 'standard Econ theory' has no relation at all to the real world. We don't need to listen to it. We can demand something better.



4) State capacity has declined because of a 'rules based' approach. In Greek this was called 'akribeia' and is the enemy of 'oikonomia'- i.e. mindlessly following rules with precision and exactitude destroys the capacity to manage 'the household' in a sensible manner.



Part of the reason for this decline is that younger politicians learned bad Econ, bad Philosophy, silly Political theories from the Seventies onward. The pedagogues were seeking to make them selves 'relevant' but they poisoned not just Paideia (which does't matter much) but the Polis itself.



In conclusion, is it really helpful to say 'Anti-globalism' = 'Anti-Semitism'= Hitler & Stalin? What policy prescription does it imply? That we should nuke West Virginia?

There is a sensible way forward. Call it 'Globally regret-minimizing Tiebout subsidiarity' or something similarly impressive if that's what it takes to get the Intellectuals on board. Or don't. We're better off without them.