Which Thinkers Will Define Our Future?

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/thinkers-who-define-future-by-j--bradford-delong-2016-06?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6f503e533b-Reinhart_Brexit_Blow_to_Globalization_3_7_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-6f503e533b-93854061

In our own time, the destruction of caste and caste privilege is taking another step forward. The period of white males’ political dominion in Western democracies is coming to an end. And it is coming to an end at a time when economic populism is replacing technocratic management, often with white males turning to nativism in response to the destruction of their jobs and livelihoods by the impersonal forces of globalization.

As we can see in one country after another, the old order won’t give up without a fight. No old order does. But the caste-like privilege of white males is doomed. The challenge now before us is how best to realize newly available opportunities for human betterment, for the benefit of all. I can think of few more useful guides to that challenge than Keynes, Polanyi, and Tocqueville.