4 Comments

The palpable adds up to the data driven... Well, yes, but the data driven also averages out the palpable - and it's the losers of the palpable that are asserting the Polanyian rights that you emphasize so much elsewhere.

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Yes, but there were **so many** palpable losers from Brexit because the aggregates and averages from cutting your links with your natural trading partners were so negative...

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I thought that the Payne article was silly, but he has a point. Politically, there is nothing second-order about the distribution of GDP. People respond doubly to a perceived maldistribution--they are angry about being deprived, and angrier at those who gain at their expense. Their response could be welfarist, socialist, or fascist. But respond they do, and pretty strongly.

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I was wondering if Payne was attempting a head-fake on the Tories, trying to get them to be less Tory-like (and actually help out folks instead of leaving them to the tender mercies of the all knowing market), while telling the Tories not to worry because it doesn't really require any tinkering with GDP and the core of their ideology.

Which I guess means I didn't think Payne is being silly, but he is foolish.

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