But I find the identification of socialist policies (let's call them by their true name) with protectionism bizarre.

The so-called free trade economies are more than capable of putting up tariff barriers if they feel it's in their interests. It's as much a capitalist phenomenon as a socialist one.

The core of the issue is whether wealth is concentrated among the very rich or distributed among everyone else. Again, this has nothing to do with protectionism.

It worries me that an academic would believe that it does, because it suggests that his framing is de facto economic and sealed against any other kind of social metric.