John Burn-Murdoch (FT) argues that one key political development in the last decade or so is the rise of 'Zero-Sum Politics';
As gains in the standard of living for most voters have stalled, politicians has become focussed on redistribution.
There have always been parties on the Right & Left that have been anti-system & focussed on groups who have been blamed for inequality, but Burn-Murdoch's point about Zero-Sum politics becoming more mainstream seems right!
Economics began as a theory at a time when the population was quite small and resources seemed endless. Always more to exploit and everyone could become better off, though always with glaring inequalities.
Now we're depleting resources at an unsustainable rate, and the population is 8 billion. Some theoretical studies show that we could give everyone a decent standard of living, but that calls for us to be much better people than we are.
Adam Smith's toy model is broken.
