Ytali Topic: Europe’s new conflicts. A conversation with Mark Blyth
Excerpts: Inequality is an issue everywhere. Corporate profits have never been higher, labor’s share of national income has almost never been lower, and inflation has been replaced by deflation. Is there a set of economic ideas, a new economic paradigm that can help to reverse this situation? I do not think that it is helpful to think in terms of paradigms. Paradigms imply giant interconnected sets of ideas where everything presents itself neatly, and you choose between clear options. Think about neo-nationalism. We’ve just mentioned that there are two strains. According to the country you look at, you may find even more strains. Let’s take the case of Sweden. Why are the Swedish extreme right doing so well? To me the most convincing explanation is not immigration, because that does not really move that much in the polls. And it is certainly not inequality because Sweden is still one of the most equal societies on the planet. The answer has to do with the fact that for many yea...