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Artificial intelligence, climate change, Gaza and Ukraine wars: All these Big Things are roiling the world. But another, perhaps under your radar, is deglobalization.
Globalization too was a Big Thing, benefiting billions. It meant removing barriers to trade and investment and was widely embraced, especially after the Cold War, because such economic openness best serves overall prosperity. Half a century of globalization saw worldwide average real-dollar incomes multiply several times over. Extreme poverty plummeted.
But inevitably, as with any large economic reordering in a complex world, there were downsides and losers.
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One aspect of it was reduced tariffs. Taxes on imported goods may protect a firm against foreign competitors, but that comes at the expense of consumers, including other businesses. Steel tariffs benefit steel makers but harm steel users. Adam Smith explained that if some other country can make something more cheaply than we can, we're best off buying theirs and redirecting our........