Another similarity of Brexit and Trump's campaigns was an attack on so-called elites. This is not so much a failure of capitalism as of its high priests in the economic profession, for which we must all take some responsibility.

Unfortunately, simplistic framing of problems leads to simplistic answers.

While infrastructure is of course important, it must be part of a bigger vision. The point is not to simply dig ditches but to steer those investments towards transformational growth.

The globalized nature of production and innovation means that the benefits don't necessarily stay in the country where the investments are made.

Brexit has shrunk the market opportunities. Exiting trade deals will do the same for the U.S. Those deals must be actively shaped and governed to make growth more inclusive.

As a businessman, Donald Trump has been associated with some of the worst excesses of a particular style of value-extracting and asset stripping capitalism: set up businesses, let them fail, avoid paying suppliers, use bankruptcy laws to avoid taxes for decades, then set up another business somewhere else. It is this model that is the cause of many problems we see today.

If we want growth today to be more innovation-driven, more inclusive and more sustainable, then we need a more active state, not a less active one. Yet we still hear the dogma that we should just fix market failure by focusing on science and infrastructure, and to "level the playing field."