Missing the economic big picture

Berkeley

I RECENTLY heard former World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy paraphrasing a classic Buddhist proverb, wherein China's sixth Buddhist patriarch, Huineng, tells the nun, Wu Jincang: "When the philosopher points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger." Mr Lamy added that, "Market capitalism is the moon. Globalisation is the finger."

With anti-globalisation sentiment now on the rise throughout the West, this has been quite a year for finger-watching. In the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum, "Little Englanders" voted to leave the European Union; and in the United States, Donald Trump won the presidency because he convinced enough voters in crucial states that he will "make America great again" not least by negotiating very different trade "deals" for the country.