… is the opening of Deirdre McCloskey’s new paper “Populism Is Zero Sum Under Majority Rule”:
Populism revives the ancient ideology of zero sum for an age of majority rule. [Classical] Liberalism, by contrast, is a recent ideology of positive sum, with rights for minority groups, which often generate the positive sum.
DBx: I can’t decide which is more ludicrous: Sandersnistas and other “Progressives” embracing mercantilist doctrines as if these are the results of cutting-edge and egalitarian thinking, or conservatives embracing mercantilist doctrines as if these are key to restoring national greatness.
