Some might say this surgical approach is prone to political "manipulation,"

What is not ? (prone to manipulation)

Current trend of financial and trade globalization is also a manipulation affair, with lobbies keeping a lid on some business sectors, or wiping some others. And it was largely unchecked by populations (although westerners somewhat voted "yes" with their wallets, buying invariably the imported crapware).

In any case, the devil is in the details, and having public control of the details falls back to command economies, which do not compete very well with others in expansive eras. Of course, a command economy will be better off if the current system self-organizes into a catastrophic failure.

Pierre