New industrial policies will make the world more unequal

On top of defanging China, firming up supply chains and saving the planet, politicians say that homeland economics will reduce inequality. On both left and right they blame the globalisation of the 1990s and 2000s for widening disparities in income and wealth, as manufacturing jobs withered in the face of the “China shock”. Both sides want to bring back these jobs and restore the industrial working class. Democrats hope this might dissuade people from voting again for Donald Trump. Both sides are likely to be disappointed.