THE populist revolt that has swept the world in recent years has been driven in part by hostility towards the "elites" - the label used on educated urban professionals whose expertise, it is argued, does not measure up to the wisdom of the masses.

Hence the two recent major populist insurgencies - the decision by British voters to withdraw from the European Union, aka Brexit, and the election of a business tycoon with no basic government experience as US president - dramatised the public's backlash against the "experts", whose claim of access to knowledge was dismissed as being irrelevant to what happens in the "real world".

Indeed, the warnings by economists that Brexit would harm British interests and reduce the nation's standard of living were scorned by your average populist as the crying wolf of self-interested globalists. Under President Donald Trump, the revolt against the experts has taken the form of an assault against the so-called "Deep State" - professionals in the federal government who are accused of dispensing advice as part of a grand conspiracy aimed at ousting a leader who was elected by the people.