This is one of those times. Openness, an openness enhanced by globalisation and by the liberal reforms pioneered and promoted by Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and others, has had huge success, all over the world. But it has also eroded and undermined equality of political rights and thus social trust in many countries by producing concentrations of wealth and power that have proved capable of subverting democracy and manipulating public policy, as well as making free markets less free by establishing new monopolies to replace old ones.
