Can they win trust by fooling us?

Brexit and the Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election last year led to Prof D Rodrik exploring ways of "How to combat populist demagogues." This has happened because of a "trilemma, whereby it is impossible to have national sovereignty, democracy, and hyper-globalization all at once. We must choose two out of three". A former politician said, "Populists are at least honest. They are clear about the choice they are making; they want the nation-state, and not hyper-globalization or the European single market. But we told our people they could have all three cakes at simultaneously. We made promises we could not deliver." The former politician has still not understood or he is prevaricating. Not just populists, all politicians want the nation-state because it is the source of their power. Despite the adoption of a common currency, the Euro, by 19 countries of the European Union in 1999, there is no political union. After the shock of the Brexit vote in Britain last year there are calls for a political union, but will the smaller nations agree to a superstate in which France and Germany, with possible contribution from Italy, will call the shots. "Globalization rests on the premise that the free flow of capital, goods, people and ideas across national boundaries will create maximum utility for people of participating countries," wrote S Saran. Capital has indeed flowed freely to countries with cheap labor and import of cheap goods have decimated jobs, but people cannot, or do not want to move to other countries with totally different cultures. India has suffered badly from Regional Free Trade Agreements, wrote A Ranade. While our import of goods has soared due to lower import duties, we have not increased export of services, presumably because countries have put up barriers against movement of people. Free flow of capital has great dangers for emerging economies because central banks of rich nations have unleashed a flood of liquidity by keeping interest rate near zero which is leading to asset price bubbles everywhere. Should this reverse suddenly it could cause mayhem in our markets. Independence of central banks is being blamed for lack of growth in the global economy, wrote B Eichengreen. Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke said recently that there should be greater coordination between monetary and fiscal policies, which means that politicians should dictate to central banks, wrote W Pesek. This is already happening in Asia. To win control back from populists, politicians in the center have to offer restriction of globalization, but at the same time "offer an inclusive, rather than nativist, conception of national identity, and their politics must remain squarely within liberal democratic norms". In other words, fool the people. That is why politicians are not trusted in the first place.