Vladimir Zhirinovsky is not much of a politician, but he is a fine inventor of malicious aper us. We should create suffering for others. Such a reaction was, in the past, a source of conflict and war. Even in the peculiarly dramatic and colorful world of Russian politics, Zhirinovsky is treated as a clown, not a prophet. Slipping on the banana skin is sometimes unavoidable.
Market economies are dynamic but also disruptive.
There is, moreover, an underlying political problem. Since the 1970s, the international capital markets have made it easier to finance deficits. Although the markets react sharply to unsustainable fiscal policies, they do not react immediately, at the first sign of trouble, but usually fairly late in the game. As a result, an economically integrated world is likely to see more and more generalized financial and banking panics, which are always frightening and therefore evoke demands for a halt to liberalization. The extent to which the response to crises will actually turn back the clock depends on how we are prepared to think about the problem.