In Episode Six of #CargoOfBricks, Mick speaks to Eric Lonergan who, with Mark Blyth, in #Angrynomics critiques how populism exploits the vacuum between democratic politics and unregulated markets, and those markets and the real economy:

• At the crux of the book, anger is one of the most powerful agencies within politics just now. It takes two forms: moral anger as in the witness of injustice and an improving agent within society and the second which acts as a tribal identity regulator.

• As mainstream politicians have 'biased upwards', listening to the voices of the elite, rather than the poor, angry, frustrated, or distressed. Populism has moved into that gap to give such folks a public voice. And meaningful policy choice gets lost.

• However, Governments can redistribute wealth to those who don't have it and use targeted low-interest rate loans to enable the private sector to drive an ambitious Green New Deal and enable governments to regenerate our starved public services.
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Much food for thought for the new Irish government. Get a copy, preferably from your local bookshop (like No Alibis Books in Belfast) or, if you really have to, Hive, Amazon or some other online space.

If you are (still) really passionate about democratic politics, you'll enjoy this very important book. Meantime, see you next week. You can subscribe to Cargo of Bricks, Slugger TV, and our other podcasts on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts or Spotify.