In which I try to explain the logic of discontent

Or at least part of it:

Consistent with those points, I would say the road widening is wonderful for boosting throughput — that is, it gets more people and cars onto the road. Yet it’s mediocre or worse for improving the quality of life of the typical resident. An economist, engineer or technocrat typically believes that boosting throughput is important, but voters usually are less impressed.

Western democracies are encountering more problems that have this logical structure and bring an analogous clash of values…

It’s no accident that so many of the gains available today involve throughput. If you widen a road, more people will drive on it. If you open up a border, more foreigners will come. If you build more in a well-to-do city, new residents will pour in and make it more crowded. These days there is always someone knocking at the gates because of all of the global talent that has been mobilized.

And that is part of the logic that elected Donald Trump and drove Britons to vote to leave the European Union. It’s well known in economics that when prices and opportunities change, it is the elastic factors of production (those that can change their plans readily) that gain the most, and the inelastic factors that are most likely to bear losses. Insiders and long-term residents are so often the inelastic ones while outsiders and newcomers have the greater willingness or ability to adjust.

That is from my Bloomberg column, there is much more at the link.

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