This perspective is from DemDigest:

With the Covid pandemic, the sheer incompetence of the nativist populists has at least become clear, notes FT analyst Martin Wolf:

In 1944, two influential books were published by émigrés from Vienna. One, The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek, argued against the incoming tide of socialism. The other, The Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi, insisted that this tide was the inescapable result of the 19th-century free market. These books both contain truths. But, if we are to understand what is happening today, Polanyi seems much the better guide. If we wish to avoid a political breakdown, we should not seek to suppress markets, but we must surely temper their gales.

Maybe, a coalition of radical, yet sensible, reformers will re-emerge, to re-engineer domestic policies and global politics. Perhaps, the Covid-19 crisis itself will catalyse this. But it will take both will and the talent to create new coalitions of ideas and interests, Wolf adds.

Read the full article here.