Neo-populism is a philosophy that pretends to be innovative and more economically efficient than free market capitalism. True believers in neo-populism are described as neo-populists. But on economic policy, they are much more akin to traditional progressives. They believe that they know how best to most efficiently allocate capital in an economy that approaches $30 trillion in annual output.

Neo-populists, by their own literature, tell us that they, the policy elites, know what we want. Neo-populists say that we the people don’t know what we want. Their direct implication is that we need to be guided like sheep. But neo-populists are statists at best and socialists at worst. Their policy prescriptions are an economic dead end, just like the economies of Western Europe.