There’s not much I can add that hasn’t already been said. But Larry Summers makes a point that touches on the themes in We Wanted Workers, so I wanted to highlight the point:
The political challenge in many countries going forward is to develop a “responsible nationalism”. It is clear that there is a hunger on the part of electorates, if not the Davos set within countries, for approaches to policy that privilege local interests and local people over more cosmopolitan concerns…We now know that neither denying the hunger, or explaining that it is based on fallacy is a viable strategy.
As I put it in the title to the concluding chapter of my book, policy makers face a very simple question: “Who are you rooting for?”
The British people had a choice, a choice put to them in a very stark fashion by the long list of “expert” doomsayers who supported Remain (and who obviously benefited from the way things were yesterday). The more I thought about the arguments made by the experts, the more I felt that a typical voter’s choice could be summarized by:
Give me liberty…or give me a 1.2% higher per-capita GDP.
The British people chose wisely.
