Allison Schrager, Columnist

Populism Is Bad for Economic Growth

By proposing trade barriers and tariffs, politicians are promising a return to an idealized past, but successful economic policy is focused on the future.

October 21, 2024 at 10:30 AM UTC

By Allison Schrager

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.”

Workers of the future?
Photographer: Jade Gao/AFP

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The degrowth movement, which had a moment a few years ago, is over — and not a moment too soon. As nations in Europe and North America face mounting debt and aging populations, politicians are again talking about how to increase economic growth. It is their only hope.

There’s only one problem: No one is advocating policies that will actually work. Doing that would require embracing change, which is the last thing any politician beholden to populism wants to do.