No need for US progressives to bash trade

MEMBERS of the US Democratic Party's progressive wing, in response to widening economic inequality, are advocating more government activism to help the struggling middle class.

Indeed, the populist message of the progressives with its emphasis on the need to raise tax rates on the rich and to provide more assistance to the poor, is gradually becoming central to the Democratic Party's agenda, replacing the pro-free-market orientation that had dominated the party's policy during the presidency of Bill Clinton. The election of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio who had pledged to apply progressive ideas during his term in office, and the political surge of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a long-time opponent of Wall Street who may challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, suggest that the party is starting to move to the political left.

Progressive pundits have embraced some of the ideas promoted by French economist Thomas Piketty in his recently published Capital in the Twenty-First Century which details the rising income inequality, and Democratic politicians are calling for legislation to raise the minimum wage. That the political pendulum among Democrats is now swinging to the political left is not surprising. The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession have made it more acceptable to challenge the prevailing free-market principles and give momentum to political activists who want to transform the Democratic Party into an unabashed champion of social-democratic policy ideas.