World of Shocks

Brexit, the US-China trade war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—more such geopolitical surprises will continue the economic upheaval

- By Tom Orlik, Ana Galvao and Scott Johnson

For those with a short memory, it's tempting to blame the world's problems on surging populism. In this telling, Brexit, the US-China trade war and America's botched response to Covid-19 become part of a single narrative.

Rabble-rousing leaders in the mold of Donald Trump pander to the worst instincts of the body politic, expert voices are drowned out in the echo chamber of social media, and the economy pays the price.

The trouble with that version of recent history is that though they're responsible for some real doozies, populists don't have a monopoly on policy failure. Remember the global financial crisis? The European sovereign debt crisis? The stagnation of middle-class wages and upward spiral in inequality? All major shocks to the system. All taking place when the supposed grown-ups were in charge.

Perhaps it makes more sense to say both populist and mainstream politicians are grasping for a response to seismic shifts in the way the world works. Indeed, in the conflict that underlines so much of today's global tension-the battle for supremacy between the US and China-it turns out the rival US camps have basically the same approach.

In 1989, anticipating the fall of the Soviet Union, political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared "the end of history," with the triumph of democracy and capitalism over authoritarianism and state control. That happened to be premature.