The Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond

by George Friedman

The theory of free trade is that it increases the wealth of nations. Left open are two questions. First, how long will it take to achieve this end? Second, how will the increased wealth be distributed? Free trade, and capitalism in general, are constantly creating new wealth and on the whole drive the economy forward. But “on the whole” excludes those who lose their jobs as the economic revolution takes place and never find a new job. In the abstract theory of the free market, this is a price that has to be paid. In the real world of society and politics, where the displaced have more power than they have in the economy, the reality is that this process can destabilize important and powerful sectors of the economy. That’s what happened throughout the process, but it became a political reality in the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century. The numbers grew and were concentrated in the same geographic areas.