In the eyes of many, Brexit, the 2016 US election result, and nationalist movements across the West pose a significant threat to the post-war world order. Dennis Shen evaluates one cause: an imbalance in globalization, and argues for the need for grit in the wheels of global markets to address the costs to globalization's losers, to restore faith in the political establishment and to place the world on a more sustainable footing.
A fundamental re-thinking in the balance between markets and government is required today in the United States. The progressive liberalization of markets and withdrawal of government intervention since the 1980s has led to clear consequences. The modern state of corporate hegemony in politics, financial instability, low growth and rising inequality serve as stark reminders to the shortcomings. This paper examines the effects that neo-liberal policies over the past thirty years have had on the modern political inequality and economic instability. The paper concludes that an imbalance between markets and government has been central to the problems we observe today. To confront modern challenges, America requires a re-strengthened and reformed state – one that will evict special interests, present a properly regulated market economy and reinstitute a new moral direction for our nation's future. Only by resolving the balance between private markets and government regulation can we restore the nation that represents the freedom, equality, prosperity and compassion that is America at its best.
