A few pointsWhy invent a woolly term like macroinstitutions . Why not say people need to have trust in government or the system of governance or democracy ? We have words for this . There is no need to add another . If protectionism means saving our country ' s jobs for a couple of dollars , then sign me upYou are smart enough to know that that isn ' t the tradeoff . Faith in these macroinstitutions , however , may put people ' s utility functions into forms that don ' t conflict with the wellbeing of others in society . Let us have a debate about what engenders faith in macroinstitutions then . I put it to you that widely distributed economic growth engenders trust in the system . Rising income levels confer legitimacy on the system so to speak . The line of reasoning which says EfficiencyGrowthTrust in the system seems pretty ironclad to me . Rather than propping up inefficient regions or industries , debate should be focused on expanding mobility geographic and economic and structural reforms that increase efficiency . This idea that we need to cater to bumper sticker policies to make people ~~ feel good ~~ sorry , have trust in macroinstitutions is corrosive because when these simplistic policies fail to deliver the goods let us see whether slapping 45 % tariffs on Chinese goods results in an American manufacturing renaissance , the faith that you seem so keen on will collapse even more so than it has .