Populism and free markets have a strained relationship. On the one hand, free markets have raised the living standards of ordinary people beyond belief and given them opportunities their ancestors couldn’t possibly imagine. So one would think any leader who wants the people on his side would promote market economics. On the other hand, actual populists around the world demagogue against capitalism any chance they get and the people often approve, even though soaking the rich rarely helps the non-rich and usually makes everyone worse off.
Populism also makes for strange bedfellows. Take Pope Francis and Donald Trump, for instance. They are certainly populists of very different sorts, but there is one issue that unites them – both are harsh critics of economic globalization. Francis does explicitly and by name what Trump does implicitly and in practice. In fact, they seem to derive much of their popularity precisely because they attack free markets as an enemy of the people. Their worlds will collide later this month when Pope Francis visits America’s centers of political and financial power – K Street and Wall Street will not be treated nicely, we can be sure.
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