The first China Shock in the 1990s and early 2000s flooded the world with cheap goods and redrew the contours of the global economy.

It let multinationals exploit labour arbitrage, playing off Chinese wages against the wages of blue-collar workers in America and Europe. It lifted both the profit share of GDP and the Gini coefficient of inequality to the highest levels since the Second World War.

It rewarded capital, while the West’s bottom half was left behind, poisoning our democracies. It compounded the brain vs........

© The Sydney Morning Herald