To Lump Him With Trump, Zakaria Lies About Sanders on Brexit

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To Lump Him With Trump, Zakaria Lies About Sanders on Brexit
by Adam Johnson, Jim Naureckas
Common Dreams

Zakaria went on to say:

Over the past 50 years, the countries that have grown the most are those that have opened themselves up to global markets.

This is an article of neoliberal faith, but it just isn’t true. China, for instance, has had a GDP growth rate of 10.9 percent annually over the past 50 years (based on World Bank figures), but does not have a particularly “open economy”; the International Chamber of Commerce puts it in 59th place out of 75 countries in its Open Market Index. Pakistan and Bangladesh–72nd and 73rd on the ICC’s list–grew by 8.0 and 7.2 percent per year, respectively. India–which Zakaria singles out as a country kept “poor and stagnant” because it “followed economic policies premised on the idea that free trade was disastrous”–has had annual growth of 7.4 percent from 1964 to 2014.

For neoliberal high priests like Zakaria, maintaining the ideological order on free trade is of the utmost importance. To do this, it’s essential they hammer home the myth that “populist” candidates of left and right are simply two sides of the same ignorant, irrational coin.

Meanwhile, calm, scholarly, Serious People like Zakaria will come in and explain why the centrist corporate orthodoxy is the one true faith. That they have to spread falsehoods and half-truths to do so is a testament to how tenuous their position has become.