Re-live: Short Cut with Angus Deaton: Are Economists to Blame for Donald Trump's Rise?

At the beginning of 2024, it is clear that more and more people are deeply dissatisfied with politics and democratic capitalism. At the same time, right-wing populist parties are surging in the polls and winning elections in many countries around the world. But why are so many people now inclined to vote for populists? If you believe Nobel laureate Angus Deaton and the arguments in his acclaimed book “Economics in America”, economists are in no small part to blame.

The financial crisis of 2008 and its grim aftermath have shattered the myth that everyone benefits when markets are unleashed and individuals get richer and richer. More broadly, economics is a discipline that has for too long focused on efficiency and neglected other social issues. As a result, more and more people feel left behind and abandoned. In the US, this has already led to the victory of Donald Trump once. In response to a political system that does not help them, people are increasingly turning to populism.

But is this the result of bad decisions by a few powerful economists? Or is there a deep flaw in the discipline that continues to lead its practitioners astray – and people away from democracy?

Angus Deaton has discussed this with the former head of the German Council of Economic Experts and president of the Essen-based RWI Institute, Christoph Schmidt, at our last New Economy Short Cut on 20 February 2024.