By Maria Negreponi-Delivanis
4 Mar 2019
Abstract
The world is entering a new international economic order, with clearly different characteristics to the previous one. Apart from the fundamental rotation (every 40-50 years) between the regimes of free trade and protectionism, the decisive difference is the rapid rise of populist parties that are gradually displacing traditional political parties and traditional governments in Europe and the world. This development is the angry response of the victims of globalization, which has created many losers and few winners. Despite some differences among these new political parties, depending on whether they belong to the right or left, they all share certain basic choices, such as closed borders, the return of nationalism, the need for state intervention in the economy, a more equitable distribution of wealth, the demonstration of hostility to elitism and the status quo, the limitation of unregulated stock market economy, the greater emphasis on domestic production and consumption than exports. This status change is important not only from the point of view of mutating from liberal to illiberal democracy, but also from the point of view of the radical economic changes expected at the international and national levels. The main question, which at present cannot be answered, is whether life on the planet Earth will be better or worse as a result of these fundamental changes that penetrate our everyday life.
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