Ngaire Woods

OXFORD – In both the United Kingdom and the United States, political parties on the left and the right are competing to show voters that they are on the side of working people. The question is whether prevailing approaches to protecting workers – which focus on a combination of industrial policy and restrictions on trade, investment, and immigration – are actually in workers’ interest.

Protecting workers has become practically synonymous with protectionism. In recent years, voters in many countries, concerned about their economic well-being, have turned against free trade, immigration, and inward foreign direct investment – and have rejected the leaders and parties who long promoted such policies.

Europe is a case in point. After the 2007-08 global financial crisis plunged even middle-class households into economic insecurity, voters began to look beyond mainstream political parties in search of greater support and protection, and were often attracted by those blaming immigration for their struggles. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis that followed, reinforced this trend, and recent elections in Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands saw surging support for anti-immigration parties.

In the US, new political parties did not emerge, but a new kind of leader did. Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016 partly by blaming free trade (particularly with China) for decimating jobs and investment in America’s Rust Belt. While criticizing free markets and capitalism used to be the preserve of the left, even The American Conservative now runs articles pillorying........

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