Rajiv Sethi over at his blog:
It's glaringly obvious that international trade, migration, and technological progress have brought enormous benefits to many of us. Our handheld devices are more powerful than the computers that launched our first satellites into orbit. Our system of higher education remains a magnet for eager students from every corner of the world, in part because we have attracted and retained the finest research talent. We are on the verge of a revolution in transportation and urban form as driverless cars make their presence felt. Our cultural products—movies and music among them—continue to attract strong global demand. And our Olympic medal winners encompass many different identities, religions, and countries of origin.
But globalization and technological progress have also left in their wake economic devastation and social disintegration across large swathes of the country that were previously prosperous and stable. The kind of deprivation once confined to inner cities—and tolerated for decades by the rest of society—is now pervasive in once-thriving industrial areas. In his recent and acclaimedmemoir, JD Vance laments the decline of Middletown, Ohio from a proud and bustling steel town to “a relic of American industrial glory,” with abandoned shops and broken windows, derelict homes, druggies and dealers, and places to be avoided after dark.
Anne Case and Angus Deaton have reported a startling increase in midlife mortality among white Americans without a college degree, “largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.” Stratification by sexreveals that this phenomenon has hit white working class women especially hard. Trends in criminal justice tell a similar story: the incarceration rate for white women has risen by a staggering fifty percent since 2000, while that for black women has fallen more than 30%. Similar, but much less striking trends are in evidence for males.
All this has led to what Dani Rodrik calls the politics of anger.
More here.