Anything that lowers employment is often viewed with concern by the public. But trade and technology in fact make us wealthier certainly over time. The benefits of that wealth increase are not narrowly enjoyed by a small elite. And yet people have the suspicion of those kinds of changes. It's relatively speaking that the public is pessimistic, sees things in decline.
Bryan Caplan, of George Mason University and blogger at EconLog, talks about his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Caplan argues that democracies work well in giving voters what they want but unfortunately, what voters want isn't particularly wise, especially when it comes to economic policy. He outlines a series of systematic biases we often have on economic topics and explains why we have little or no incentive to improve our understanding of the world and vote wisely. So, it's not special interests that are messing things up but the very incentives that lie at the heart of a vote-based system. This is a disturbing and provocative lens for viewing political outcomes.