When Fukuyama famously declared “the end of history,” it summed up his view that liberal economics had won the battle against socialism and would remain the dominant economic framework for all time to come. The success of Chinese state capitalism has been an obvious challenge to the claim. But now from Trump to Le Pen, Reform to the AfD, there is within the West a challenge to traditional liberal economics that comes not from socialism but from populist economic nationalism. It takes issue with central elements of liberal economics, arguing against free trade and in favour of tariffs and state intervention, while at the same time proposing tax cuts. Economic history, it would seem, isn't over yet.
Are we seeing the emergence of a new and credible economic theory in support of populist nationalism? Or is this no more than a combination of popular policies that makes no economic sense? More fundamentally, is this evidence that liberal economics is not a coherent economic theory in the first place and that a grand overall economic theory is neither necessary nor possible?
