The harsh treatment handed out to European Union ideals by French and Dutch voters this month was in part a reaction to excessive EU bureaucracy and expansionism. But it was also a gut rejection of so-called globalization -- the foolish effort to deny economic and social differences between nations.
The idea, for example, that EU governments could be fined for not submitting to EU-imposed fiscal and free-trade policies was absurd from the start. Some nations need to protect economies and industries; some don't. Ironically, the same EU now threatens anti-free trade, protectionist fines to keep Chinese textiles at bay.
Conventional wisdoms come in cycles. Until the middle of the last century, it was taken for granted that societies should protect their economies and domestic industries from harmful foreign competition. Free trade was a bad word. Free traders were a despised minority.