Globalization’s losers are revolting
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
It's no surprise then that these "losers" are seeking something better for themselves. They may not know what the right answer is, but no one does. And the argument that "we should keep trying the same thing" eventually falls flat with no results. So a headlong leap into the unknown looks better than pounding your head against the same wall over and over again.
Which means this boils down to a very obvious realization: people who don't see the benefits of the status quo don't like the status quo. To those for whom the status quo is working, this comes as a shock. And for whatever reason, this year is the one where that minority becomes a majority.
What I've found shocking in all this is the vitrol of the "winners". Brexiters (and Trump voters) have been called naive, idiots, racists, xenophobes, sheeple, and worse. ("Losers" comes to mind.)
No matter what happens as a result of the UK/EU decision, the U.S. presidential election, or other policy changes around the world, we have to figure out how to fix the problem at the core of all this. Why so many people are unhappy. And name-calling isn't going to help.
Please note the "status quo" is in fact moving away from racism and xenophobia, very slowly. This is much better than scrapping the "status quo" in favor of plunging back into racism and xenophobia.
If the "status quo" isn't working for you and you want to scrap it in favor of Trump or Brexit, then you probably are not affected by issues like racism and xenophobia. And you need to look around you at minorities, immigrants, and Muslims, and consider them carefully before making a vote. For them, the "status quo" is definitely an improvement over Trump and Brexit, and we definitely shouldn't forget about them just because we're upset with things changing very slowly.
In modern times, not caring that the rights of minorities and immigrants will be trampled is rightfully interpreted as being a racist xenophobe. We are trying to collectively move away from these old-fashioned bad ideas, and supporting Trump is backward in this sense.
If you say that one cannot morally support Trump because Trump is a racist and xenophobe at heart, would you also say that one cannot support Hilary, because she is a drug warrior and "tough on crime" crusader at heart?
(I think the answer is no, because it's reasonable to support a politician without endorsing all of that politician's world views).
I realize that I occupy a position outside of the political mainstream in America, but I suspect that is changing. I expect to see many more people rejecting neoliberal economics as a game rigged against workers by the bourgeoisie.
It is possible to support policies that affect these groups without being racist or xenophobic. It's unfortunate that there are groups that will suffer as the result of things like immigration laws, but there are several very strong arguments to support immigration laws. Would we want unlimited, open immigration from Mexico? The vast majority of people would say no, but that's also affecting Mexican and South American people tremendously. Why is there no uproar about xenophobia directed at those people?
Mainly because the status quo on both the Republican and Democratic side supports the economic policies that have been so bad for them.
Trump has never mentioned race negatively. Mexican is not a race (it's a country). Muslim is not a race (it's a religion).
Trump's comments on immigration, trade, or terrorism doesn't come from a dislike of people from other countries, but a desire to put American citizens first. This might be what you want from an American President.
So your "racist xenophobe" is someone else's "nationalist leader".
But name-calling tamps down reasonable discourse in all cases. (And Trump is as guilty of this as anyone, but certainly not the sole offender.) Going up to a Trump supporter and saying, "Hi you racist xenophobe, want to have a level-headed discussion on nationalism and human rights?" doesn't work so well.
The profoundly negative coverage of Trump is doing as much to explain his success as anything else. It causes people to shut down. And it's not healthy for anyone.
"These people believe stupid things, and they won't respond to logic unless you sugar coat it"
My point was that there's no one source of truth. Perception is reality. To a vast majority of his supporters, Trump is not a racist xenophobe. Period, full stop. And this isn't stupid: an intelligent, reasonable person could make that argument. And plenty of Trump supporters are intelligent, reasonable people.
Did something get lost in translation?
I'll say that a different way: if you think that a large number of people with whom you disagree are stupid (or racist, or whatever excuse you choose to minimize their logical decisionmaking), YOU ARE IGNORANT AND NAIVE.
You may disagree with them. That's fine. You might be interested in finding common ground and compromise instead of running around accusing everyone of being a stupid, racist xenophobe. In that case, you're looking to have a dialogue which can only happen from positions of mutual respect.
That respect is lacking, particularly on the vocal left.
You may convince someone to "see things your way", but you have to open yourself up to see things their way.
Trump cannot be a nationalist leader as he does not respect the principles upon which this nation was founded (see my other comments for more specificity).
Trump has repeatedly said that immigrants are more than welcome, but they need to come legally. How is that racist?
When Sotomayor said that a wise latina woman could come to better conclusions than old white men, was that racist too?
What about when Curiel himself admitted that his heritage has influenced his practice of the law in the past[1] (when he was a drug prosecutor in the late 90s)
> According to participants on both sides, the Mexicans looked across the table at Mr. Chavez, Mr. Vega and Mr. Curiel, all born of Mexican parents, and the spark of recognition lit a fire.
> "It couldn't but help," Mr. Curiel said. "We were working without the disconnect of interpreters and barriers of culture. When it comes down to it, this involves the country of our parents." Mr. Vega, now in private practice, said the simple fact that the meetings were conducted in Spanish "broke the ice."
> "It was confianza," he said, the Spanish word for trust.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/26/international/americas/26D...
Aside from talking about currently illegal immigration, he's also talked about a ban on foreign Muslims (the details of which have morphed over time), he's talked about curtailing existing legal immigration programs (focssing on the H-1B, but he's also said he'd implement an "absolute requirement to hire Americans first for every visa and immigration program" -- which doesn't even make sense for many visa categories and immigration programs [including the main US set of immigration visa categories, which are the family-based categories], but its what he said), he's suggested increased application and other fees for existing legal immigration programs.
You are, of course, free to think that's a good thing.
You're claiming it's the latter. What do you base that on?
No, I'm not. I'm claiming that "security" and "immigration" aren't disjoint categories of policy discussions such that just because a position on immigration has some reference to security concerns, its part of the "security debate" but not part of the "immigration debate"; Trump has made many comments against immigration (and not just currently-illegal immigration). Some of those comments have been justified by economic concerns, some have been justified by security concerns. But that doesn't make the former about the economy but not immigration, and it doesn't make the latter about security but not immigration. Instead, it makes the former about economics and about immigration, and the latter about security and about immigration.
In your opinion, is it racist or xenophobic for people in Britain to believe that the laws that govern them should maximize the prosperity of people in Britain, and not that of anyone else?
Heads of national governments do not sit in the European Commission, they form the European Council.
Which brings me back to my question: is it racist and xenophobic for the British not to want to be governed by people who owe allegiances to people besides the British?
A nitpick: the EU does not write laws, they write directives. It is up to every country's national parliament to write their own laws that meet/implement the directives.
Wealth inequality and the class struggle are the defining problems of our generation, and all this nonsense about who is more underprivileged than whom is merely a concerted attempt to obfuscate that.
If you can't at least try to see issues from other people's perspectives, then that's your main problem.
I would even stand behind the notion that wealth inequality affects literally everyone, both the haves and the have-nots, while the other issues affect a minority, by definition.
I would also argue that it is perhaps advantageous to those minorities to rally behind the unifying cause of wealth inequality in order to maximize their political impact simply because if they focus on minority issues, their voice is diluted among the concerns of the overwhelming majority (which, in this particular case, is still white, in the US).
Your last paragraph makes a solid point, but it's a tough point to make. You're asking people to effectively vote against their own best interests because it's in the best interests of someone else. Any rational voter will rightly wonder why they should have to suffer to better someone else: shouldn't there be a solution that benefits all? (Or, bluntly, a solution that impacts a minority of voters who can't change the status quo?)
And the ones that are should not be called racist xenophobes because they they voted leave and the other 50.99% might get upset about the association?
And I happen to agree that Muslims shouldn't be called terrorists and not just because some majority % would be upset about the association.
I would wager that I am far more pro-immigration the you are and I would have voted leave.
I'm asking people to consider the fundamental rights of others and to notice that they're at risk. Compared to putting up with the status quo for a bit longer, losing fundamental rights and being discriminated against by the government is a much larger issue.
I'm asking people to put up with the status quo for a bit more because the only alternative is discrimination and would take away fundamental rights of others.
This may come as a shock but you'd be surprised at how little anyone cares about the "fundamental rights of others" when their own livelihood and the well being of their families are at risk regardless of what part of the political spectrum they're on.
This is not an attack on you nor sarcasm, just a blunt statement of fact. The left (of which I am a part) cannot, can not, ask people to "put up with the status quo for a bit more" in the current political environment. That will lead to Brexits, President Trump, and whatever lies beyond. Instead of berating them for being "uneducated" and "voting against their own interests", we on the left must remember our role as champions of the working class and relieve their economic suffering _now_, "fundamental rights of others" be damned, or we will all pay the price.
The cognitive dissonance is unbelievable, especially from those who are otherwise pretty intelligent.
1) immigrants making choices to come to a country in order to improve their economic situation are heroes.
2) non-immigrants voting for policies to improve their economic situation are haters and bigots.
Note: all men, not all straight white Americans who aren't Muslims and are in economic turmoil
In my opinion, the most magical thing about the United States is our duty and tendency to welcome all people of the world, of any religion, of any ancestry, with open arms and make available a better life for them. If you take this away, I'm not too impressed with this country (as compared to most of Western Europe).
But at the end of the day, the President's job is to protect the American people first and foremost.* Visitors and immigrants get protection under law, but, not at the expense of the American people. Safety, economic prosperity, and job security might fall into that category. On that reasonable minds can debate.
I think there's a lot of nationalism vs. pluralism going on right now. Brexit is one example; U.S. immigration and foreign policy is another.
(* It's actually not. It's to "defend and uphold the Constitution". Which does speak to citizens vs. non-citizens. But President Obama and others say things like, "I have no greater responsibility than protecting the American people." So anyway: nuance.)
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Like I said in the later bit of my post, our openness to immigrants and the lack of European-style nationalism and nationalistic discrimination is my favorite thing about the US. If this goes, I'd much rather live in Europe.
Like I said in another post, it's a matter of priorities. Of course I can't disagree that we need safety (cough gun control cough), economic prosperity, and job security. But unless these things are in much worse shape than they are now, I find that their importance doesn't hold up terribly well to what makes America great! :)
To me, Western Europe is a place where I can lead a much higher quality of life (I've lived in Germany and Switzerland and much prefer it over there). But I keep coming back to loving the US because we don't have this strange attitude I see in many Europeans of kinda... scowling at foreigners, thinking they're out of place, treating them differently... In fact, it's the contrary. In the US, we love foreigners. We're impressed by them, the languages they speak, the cultures and ideas they bring, and if we start having a more European approach to immigration, I'm worried we'll lose that. Then the US will become just another country.
Leaving aside all the arguments over whether it's accurate to do so, here's a question that might be worth asking:
Is it useful?
No one likes being labeled. That's as true for people with whom you do not agree as it is for those with whom you do.
If the objective is a productive discussion of differences and, ultimately, a peaceful transition into a future that works better for everyone, then applying derogatory labels to people whose view of the world differs from your own is probably not very useful.
If the objective is to insert as many crowbars as possible into already extant political, economic, and social divides, and do as much as possible to pry them open even wider, then applying derogatory labels is a great strategy. Of course, in that case, it's hard to be taken seriously when you profess surprise and dismay at the unfavorable reception you're given by those with whom you do not agree. But I've yet to see that really stop anyone.
"But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo...
> hordes of idiots
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're saying that 51% of Britons (or voting Britons) are "a horde of stupid idiots" that are swayed by money spent on advertisements.
Note that this also implies that the "smart people" on the "right" side haven't thought about running persuasive advertisements? Or can't do so effectively?
If idiots are so easily swayed--and not only swayed, but swayed to vote against their own interests--shouldn't it be easy to get them to vote your way instead?
There is not much money to be had in pro-socialist, anti-war, pro-voter initiatives, which is why they get so little traction and have such low amounts of money available for advertising etc.
Also, not saying 51% are idiots. Firstly, I am impartial to the Brexit vote and have no opinion on it. Secondly, you don't need 51% idiots, you only need enough idiots to change the result of the election, sometimes less than a percentage point.
Look, it's really simple. People are only "easily" swayed because they have limited choice (and, even these two choices are usually the same, unless they're Trump, Bernie or Corbyn). UK and US are structured so that two parties dominate; many other countries have a multi-party system, so people can have their voices heard even by voting a non-winning party.
For every formerly-prosperous-now-struggling American or European, there are a hundred formerly-starving-now-stable Chinese, Indonesians, Indians - name it. That is why the global order is being railed against in developed countries while workers in developing nations are happy enough to be living considerably better than their parents or grandparents ever did.
This also explains why the minority groups targeted by the DNC are favorable to Clinton: they are used to being pandered to with no results, but at least the modern Democratic Party assured them protections and higher standards of living than the alternative - why rock the boat?
In the end, the ONLY solution is for the West to come TOGETHER to solve the problems that have dogged their societies and are sure to do so when developing economies become sufficiently developed. Otherwise, we will fight each other separately while the economic drivers (cheap labor) of developing economies will be happy enough with their newfound living standards to threaten to take down the global system that has benefited them directly and clearly.
I don't think this is the cause. I think the real cause is that people in developed countries see how unfair their societies have become - it's not the problem that the incredibly poor Chinese are getting (slightly) richer instead of them, but that the local warlords, banklords and politilords are getting much, much richer while the people themselves grow poorer.
It took a long time for me to realize that growth had stalled for decades because I was looking at growth as measured in fiat and took for granted that the stock market returned 10% per year like clockwork.
What would one expect to see if real growth ex computation had stalled or slowed? What would be the symptoms?
People's lay intuitions are, I think, correct. More 'sophisticated' types have been misled. Some kinds of errors can only be reached by analysis.
The problem is that these are the little things, and while they often make our lives better, they don't matter that much - definitely much less than child-care costs, education costs (and accessiblity), housing/rents, jobs/careers and healthcare. Unfortunately, these cannot be improved by globalisation and the free market, but instead often have their prices set by the highest bidder, which keeps getting richer because of rising inequality.
Recent events are also a referendum on what "right" means.
Even if unrestricted free trade is wealth-maximizing, such policies are not necessarily the "right ones" in a democracy. A simple analysis of the situation suggests that in fact democratic policies should generally maximize the wealth of the majority of voters, even if those same policies fail to maximize national wealth.
One of the reasons for the frustration with the intellectual elite is their failure to realize that arguments in favor of the economic efficiency of free trade really miss the point.
Then when you final cut the throat of the dead animal you will get huge political problems on your hands. See for example coal-mines in england. Tracher had almost fight a civil war to get ride of that leech to society.
The "Leave" movement is a denial of big business, corporations, and large government. It's a counter to income inequality, correct?
>The Treasury has now followed up with a report on the short-term consequences of a vote to leave. In summarising the results, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, has stated that the UK would suffer a “do-it-yourself” recession if it decided to leave. One might better call it a “do-it-himself” recession. For it was the government’s decision to take this risk.
>The new report’s main scenario predicts that GDP would be 3.6 per cent lower after two years than if the UK voted to remain, unemployment would be 520,000 higher and the pound would be 12 per cent lower. Under a worse scenario, GDP could be 6 per cent lower, unemployment 820,000 higher and sterling 15 per cent lower.
Doesn't sound like a prescription for lower inequality in the short term at any rate.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LR-b...
In this chart ABC1 together are often summerized as "middle-class"
The fact that this huge amount of dissatisfaction is being channelled into squabbles over immigration rather than, say, supporting massive upgrades to vocational training infrastructure, is a huge missed opportunity.
Commentators on the margins of the US left have recognized this problem, and been calling it out, for at least a decade - Joe Bageant, just to pick an example off the top of my head, was a powerful and persuasive voice on the subject, but for some reason, even as he achieved international prominence outside the US, he became ever more marginalized within.
(Edited to add: Somebody elsewhere in this thread linked a Mark Ames piece in which he says the same thing. If even Mark Ames, whose major claim to fame is a multi-year exploration of street-level prostitution in newly post-Communist Russia, can see that it's a problem...)
It used to be that parties like the UK's Labour party supported the working classes (while also supporting equality and being against prejudice). Now it seems like the average left wing political party/group mostly supports the upper middle class social media user demographic, the type who think complaints about trolling on Twitter are more important than class inequality, the lack of housing or wages stagnating.
There should be room for a broader party that is pro-labor, but you would have to ditch alot of the links to civil rights or make a move to pick up the social conservatives in order to bring in many of the current GOP voters. It's possible, but I think the GOP as it currently exists needs to collapse before you can lose its grip on those voters.
Take a look at:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/ http://fredrikdeboer.com/published-writing/ https://www.dissentmagazine.org/ http://coreyrobin.com/
Just to start with. There's a huge rift between what's called the Left, and what actually is the Left right now.
It's not going to be a good year for either of their images.
> rather than, say, supporting massive upgrades to vocational training infrastructure,
Given that the percentage of professions requiring licensing tripled since the 70s (used to be 10%, now 30%)[1] and many of the license requirements plain make no sense (like requiring 4-year veterinary degree to do dog massage) - and all these were created not by mistake, but on purpose to protect vested interests - vocational training may not solve the issue. What's the point of teaching people how to do stuff if they won't be able to do that stuff because they can't get through the red tape?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/business/economy/job-licen...
Not really. Teachers have every reason to fight for their life to be better too. If what you say of the UK teacher's union is true, maybe we should find out why the teachers, good and bad, are so intent on having a well paying secure job.
>requiring 4-year veterinary degree to do dog massage
No, that is not the rule, that is a exaggerated simplification.
Oh yes, they have. But one shouldn't be confused that their interests are in any way aligned with the interests of the students in getting better (and cheaper) education. It's not an omission, it's by design. And it's not the only example - there are hundreds, if not thousands, regulations and setups that do not help the last those they are supposedly designed to help, and instead help politicians, interest groups and cronies.
> No, that is not the rule, that is a exaggerated simplification.
What you mean "exaggerated"? Read the link, it's the actual demand made by actual regulators, and it's completely within the realm of what is routinely done. I personally know many examples where people coming in US with many years of experience in certain professions, and able to find many job offers, are unable to actually work because they require licenses, which require expensive education, teaching these people what they already know and in many cases can do much better than the license teachers.
It is a rule, at least in the US. Maybe in UK it is not, congratulations if so.
While I sympathize with the diagnosis, I wonder if this is true. There does not seem to be a lot of evidence for it. The key element as I see it is that the number of niches is not growing in society, which I partly blame on the education system itself.
Supposing it wasn't true, what is your plan?
Agreed, but it only looks better. Things are bad, but they can still get much worse (see Venezuela, Somalia, Syria...)
It's not good enough to do something random. We need something that will actually help.
People think that it's just big business rigging the system to make sure they get most of the money and the expense of the average person and politicians are along for the ride. Something about the big wall street bailouts and the skyrocketing wealth gap and years of stagnant real wages for the working class may have something to do with it.
Theoretically politicians with "big government" is supposed to be the people's answer to corporate power. Also labor unions. However, globalization has weakened government power and nearly destroyed unions and now businesses are running away unchecked and creating a new guilded age.
I had really hoped that bleak dystopian 80's futurism (see: Blade Runner) wouldn't come to pass, but it's looking more and more likely with each passing day.
Are there any other bodies of literature that you could suggest regarding the 80's dystopian futurism?
I've been trying to build a reading list for the rest of summer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_literature#1...
Not all of these are "corporations grew too big and absorbed all of the worlds governments until they became a tyrannical overlord", but many are.
They funny thing is it's more of the reverse. The politicians are rigging the system to make sure they get most of the power, and big businesses are along for the ride because they can monetize the power. It's a symbiotic relationship - if a politician passes an expensive regulation, she gains power as champion of the people sticking it to a big business. But if the regulation does not kill the big business but kills (or forces to sell) their smaller competitor who has huge compliance costs and no lobbying connections - who exactly won here? And, more importantly, who exactly lost here?
Lobbying is an insanely profitable investment, second to none. And it's not possible to do anything with it going from the business side - big businesses have much more concentrated and agile power than the society, and thus would always be able to influence a specific politician more efficiently. The only way to make a dent there is to reduce the amount of damage any particular politician can do. If only thing they control is a generic nation-wide tax rate, it's not really much space for lobbying there. If they have 2000-page tax code that is full with exclusions, deductions, special cases and targeted exceptions - oh, it's a lobbying bonanza! And so on.
> Theoretically politicians with "big government" is supposed to be the people's answer to corporate power.
That's like saying a diet of donuts and cola is supposed to be the answer for obesity. Or heroin is supposed to be the answer for marijuana.
> now businesses are running away unchecked
That's exactly the opposite of what happens. Never in history there was so many regulations as there is now. Literally never - there are 3500 to 3800 regulations created every year. Think about how many of these there are when this system runs for decades. Big businesses have army of people to deal with this cursed forest. Small businesses do not. Guess why people think the system is rigged?
With the Big Government, however, the power is concentrated and it's much easier to capture it. What's easier - to play eternal whack-a-mole with a thousand of competitors or buy a couple of senators and pass a regulation to ensure all these competitors never have a chance?
I don't think it's a good idea to try and rollback every change that's been made unless you think about why the regulatory body or whatever exists in the first place.
Steamrolled in which way? Usually these corporations enjoy some support from much bigger government - like monopoly, patent, etc. - and usually the way they "steamroll" is capturing the power local government wields and using it against the competition or the opponents.
> The primary driver of this is the fact that there is just so much money out there
Do you mean the supply of money (or, to be more precise, of value expressed by money, since supply of actual fiat money is arbitrary anyway and can be made as big or small as the government wishes) is fixed? If so, this is decidedly not true.
> or even with hired security pushing around the new players.
If by pushing around you mean violence, the only entity that can legally employ violence not in self-defense in the government. So if somebody is pushing around somebody else, either government is participating or at least abdicating their duty.
> unless you think about why the regulatory body or whatever exists in the first place.
The problem is that nobody ever provided the "why" when these bodies are created. Most of them were created "because we can" or "to improve quality" or some other similarly fake and unprovable reason. If you require tangible proof to remove regulation, should not you at least require equally tangible proof to keep or institute one? Or, even more proof?
Business activities in the 19th century "lassez faire" era are what caused these regulatory bodies to be put in place in the first place. At least with modern legislature, we can find out who is doing what through the public record, can push back if they try to go too far, and don't have to worry about businesses hiring "private security" to settle their differences instead.
Racism (racial discrimination and racial hate speech) is illegal in this country and given some deplorable scenes we've seen over the past few days, I think anyone being racist should be heavily reprimanded.
I don't want to squash people's views by calling out racism, quite the opposite. I've been trying to have calm, rational discussions with people to try to understand why they voted out. Unfortunately I've only been told media soundbites such as "we want our country back" and "immigrants claim too many benefits". It usually ends in "I'm entitled to my opinion".
The problem with this is that many who share this idea don't have a good idea of what 'racism' actually is.
Note: it is NOT racist to vote for policies that advantage yourself over someone from another group, perhaps of a different race, whom you've never met, and to whom you owe nothing.
Literally in the first paragraph of wikipedia's article
Or even Marriam-Webster:
> : racial prejudice or discrimination
(discrimination being the part where you advantage yourself over others). Just think: if you were a minority in some aspect, how would you like to be treated?
As for the practice of always voting for your in-group, this is something our founding fathers (assuming you're american) have known was a limitation of democracies, and leads to bad times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
However their are other isses. What people who vote stay don't seem to take into account is the difference between "Europe coming togther" as an idea and the actual implentation that is the current EU.
My issue with the EU are many. Its not democratic in any meaningful way and it wasn't created democratically. Why all of those leftist who usually scream "democracy!" never speak out against the EU is frankly a riddle to me.
The EU economic policy rangr from stupid and pointless to stupid and harmful. The most important part of the EU, single market' could easly be done with a simple agreement. I will not go into the long list of other idiocy done by the EU.
My project of european integration would start with many reginal and if possible Europe with agreements but without much of a burocracy on top of it. Every agreement should be democratically senctioned.
Take Switzerland as an example. We forced a vote amd voted "no" against the EU after our government commited us to it (that called a "referendum"). For other isses like the Schengen border control agreement we voted yes.
It this European integration projects need explicity institutions, they should be single pourpose, such as the European Space Agency.
I am frankly sick of all the "Remain" people who are so sure about their oppinion that eveybody who disagrees must be a racist moron. And that predictions made by that, don't even have a chance to be wrong.
As for Switzerland, those who wanted to join back then also had dire predictions. The loudly claimed that Switzerland would be begging to get in. Now, nobody in their right mind wants to join anymore. The EU has neatly managed to completly dicredit itself. If Britain leaves, my prediction is that in 10 years, nobody wants to join anymore.
I specifically referred to the people being racist. Not all "leave" voters.
> Take Switzerland as an example.
No, I don't think I will.
Moreover, as they are unable to really comprehend the existence of the other group, not only they are surprised by it, but they are completely unable to manage any sensible dialog with it - thus, instead of finding common ground and figuring out maybe not ideal, but commonly beneficial solution, we have vitriol and hate from both sides.
Status quo side thinks they are beset by mobs of idiots bound on mindless destruction, and contra-status-quo side thinks they are dealing with a pack of elitist snobs completely oblivious to any argument and unwilling to even deign the plebes with consideration of their needs, and thus takes anything coming from the other side as a bunch of lies only aimed at prolonging the status quo because it works for the other side.
Absent any meaningful dialog, the whole picture becomes extremely tribal and the prognosis becomes very bleak.
A couple of relevant facts, Trump supporters earn more than the average American. Leave was pushed in the UK by two right-wing parties that cater to the rich and brought their voters along with them.
Can I not blame the winners of globalisation either?
Still, your point is generally valid
The author here is attempting to be clever by turning around and using the same trick against them. I wonder if it had the desired effect...
Don't use other people's argumentative frames if you actually disagree with them.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24...
I'd expect this level from a troll on twitter, but there were times WaPo was better than that. Not anymore.
Financial capitalism puts the developed economies on the same track toward inequality as the underdeveloped extractive economies.
For example, Tim Cook's Apple has a huge hoard of cash. But their powerful investors (Icahn, for example) won't let them spend it on developing new products, training workers, building new factories, paying taxes to help develop infrastructure, or even raising wages much. So it just accumulates. It serves as collateral so Apple can borrow money to buy back stock. So the wall street boys can have bigger megayachts.
There's no way to vote against financial capitalism. So people vote for proxies. The Brexit vote, and the strength of the movements behind Bernie Sanders and the casino developer from New Jersey are those proxies.
I wonder whether the developed world's political leadership can figure out how to unwind financial capitalism without the help of a global pandemic, famine, or great war. It's seeming less and less likely.
As for "the end of history," I'll have some of whatever Fukuyama was smoking when that vision flitted across his consciousness.
Not quite the same track. The poor in the developed economies are far better off. The feeling of injustice is equally strong, however, due to the way human psychology works. That is a real problem societies need to address.
The grandparent said "the same track". People are not revolting because they had bad times they are revolting because they don't see the end of it. They see a trend. So, who say that they (we) are not going to finish like the poor in the not developed world?
For instance, in Europe there was a de facto 'social contract', the welfare state, that is being dismantled using as excuse the need for 'austerity'.
The reality is that asia comming online in the global market is fantastic. Even the people whos income has gone down, they profit from cheap products and more importantly further development in technology.
Their is zero evidence that we will be dragged down by this.
The hole "austerity" thing is simple false. Very few countries have done any meaningful change. Most of them still have massive deficit that are growing and the government budget is generaly always growing as well.
(Not that I think that Brexit was a good solution but they have a point).
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-0...
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2014-0...
In theory it's obvious. In practice, much harder: tax the wealthy and techno-upper-class sufficiently to provide safety nets for the general population and to invest in opportunities that the free market would shun on its own like solar power, enact meaningful regulation to protect workers, consumers, and the environment, and remember that all people are people with hopes and dreams and strengths and fears.
Like I said, it is hard to implement, but for the problems you describe, that is the solution.
Entire local economies were broken by the first wave of factory closings due to globalization in the 1980's, and still haven't really recovered.
During the 2008 primaries, Obama recognized the problem: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and, like, a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not."
He nailed it on the head. Too bad he went on to say, "They get bitter. They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them." Translation: They're conservatives [1] and racists, so they deserve it. And now we know that the Bush administration isn't the last presidency to let these places fall through the cracks.
This thread's top comment says "They may not know what the right answer is, but no one does." An important clue is that the crisis in these communities started when factories closed because it was cheaper to do it overseas. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the answer is reversing the globalization -- put some taxes on imports. Another comment from this thread:
"Furthermore, people keep talking about the free trade zone as if they were children and the word "free" were a piece of candy. Free trade is not an absolute good and not a great thing when it stifles a country's growth. The US became an economic superpower not because of free trade but because of protectionism..."
Donald Trump wants to put a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. A lot of people I know would overlook a lot of his shortcomings for that policy position alone. I'm starting to wonder if I might be one of them.
[1] Many Rust Belt states have historically had a strong labor union presence, and to this day are classified as bellwethers and battleground states.
Essentially what this would mean is that the rest of prpductive america would have to pay you money for making their lives worse of. With the additional benefit of also massivly diminishing the rest of the countries chances to compete in the actual competitive market so the can pay your inflated, but tine wage.
Basically you (your ideas) make everybody worse of (and I mean everybody in the world) so that you can feel good about having a job instead of living on wellfare. Wellfare would actually be cheaper if you want to live on the pockets of the rest of your country.
Protectionism on the other hand creates job security within but reduces absolute fairness.
For instance, if a new law came out tomorrow which said "all computer programmers must be over 6 ft tall to be employed", I imagine wages for our tall friends would all increase by a whole lot, but a lot of us would be out of a job despite our skills.
Protectionism like that, but instead of a height limit, it's the logo on your passport. Also arbitrary compared to your ability to do the job.
Countries can engage in free trade deals without losing their sovereignty. For instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_F...
This hasn't entailed Canada adopting the US dollar or joining the US as the 51st state.
I'm to the point of telling my friends I'm about 50% likely to vote for Trump. Let it burn.
And I don't mean this rhetorically.
I wouldn't put too much stock in polls, this time around.
P.S. In terms of being an effective, ethical leader, I think Trump is a terrible choice.
But, I think the extant system needs to go. As I said, let it burn.
So I cannot agree with you. Bad as things are, they'd have to be a lot worse for "let it burn" to be an appropriate response.
The system is broken. The long decent into madness is completely unnecessary. The quicker it dies, the quicker we can pivot.
I think I do, yes. If you think it's within the same order of magnitude as "let it burn", I suspect you have a very limited imagination.
> The system is broken.
To paraphrase The Princess Bride: There's a big difference between "mostly broken" and "all broken". I don't think it's "all broken".
> The long decent into madness is completely unnecessary. The quicker it dies, the quicker we can pivot.
But the fast descent into madness may not be necessary either. And if not, then going there voluntarily is incredibly unwise.
Consider a simple thought experiment in punitive game theory.
Consider person A (non-wealthy) and B (wealthy). If person A wants to punish person B and has the opportunity to do so at cost X to themselves, while inflicting cost 10X on person B, it makes sense for them to do so. It is essentially a bargaining advantage - in fact, this sort of punitive bargaining technique is really the only leverage the less wealthy have against the capitalist class.
This whole principle lay behind the formation of unions, because while the punitive bargaining power of one person is meaningless, when a good portion of your work force refuses to work, you are suffering real losses and are forced to negotiate.
This is the logic behind letting the system burn and I think Brexit actually confirmed this theory much better than back-of-the-envelope game theory ever could.
In just a few days, the British elite lost how much of its wealth, compared to the bottom half of the population?
> Bad as things are, they'd have to be a lot worse for "let it burn" to be an appropriate response.
This is completely subjective and a matter of perspective. It also depends on how long-term your view is. The optimal strategy here is not as clear as it may seem.
The situation more accurately falls somewhere between game theory and public choice theory, but there's no official term for it afaik.
If everyone in the bottom 50% loses 1% of their wealth while everyone in the top 50% loses 10% of their wealth, those initially at the bottom, while now still likely at the bottom, are now (when considered relatively) doing significantly better than they were before. They would rationally vote for such a deal. If you don't believe that, look at the reverse: when you get a 1% raise and your neighbor gets a 10% raise, you end up worse off. (Look at Bay Area housing prices when one group of people quickly becomes wealthier than everyone else)
1: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/10/investing/investing-52-perce...
This is not hyperbole. Everyone seems to be assuming that "burn it all" only does minor damage. (The wealthy lose 10%? That's your definition of "burn the system"?) But succeeding in trying to take down the system really takes down the system. It's not just the kind of minor blip you're talking about.
Well, for one, that's exactly what I mean.
I've hit the half-century mark with pretty much nothing to live for.
My last full-time gig went to India, after I was asked to train two people in India who after 2 months still had no clue.
Every time you read about system X being breached and Y hundreds of thousands of PII and financial records compromised?
Well, I think of those two hapless fellows in India. And the VP's and C-suite schmucks who saved a few bucks and made a few bucks more for themselves by screwing over their own systems.
Let it burn.
P.S. Nothing wrong with Indians. But in this particular circumstance, they and their circumstances were totally incompetent with respect to the job at hand.
And... inequality is an enormous problem in India, as well.
Finally, it's been argued repeatedly and, IIRC, demonstrated at least in some social science research and papers as well as in e.g. fMRI studies and the like, that a primary role of the human mind is comparative analysis and ranking.
The low end may lose a lot, but if it destroys some of degree of ranking, it may prove to be an advantage.
And, in chaos, you end up ranked primarily with your local peers, as opposed to regional and strategic forces. You may be miserable, but socially, you may have more value.
(Think of the tremendous and enduring bonding experience of "grunts" in the military. On the one hand, you are the low end of the low -- cannon fodder. On the other, you are essential to your unit. The latter, for many, proves to have enormous value. My Great Uncle Joe continued to attend his unit's reunions well into his 80's, until shortly before he passed.)
So... Until you place that misery in context, you have not qualified it from a human perspective.
> It also depends on how long term your view is
If a few more rich countries in the world do the same, taking the route of separation, it won't look good long term for anyone. I think separation and protectionism work for a few countries, but if everyone tries to do the same, it will be a bad move.
Globalization has lead to a greater level of mutual integration between countries which in turn has decreased war. If we put more separation between our countries, there will be less incentive for peace.
Instead, we should change the system as to recover a fair share of tax money from multinationals and hold them responsible for their treatment of people (employees and customers). There should be some protections for people, but giving free trade away would lead to isolation for some and war for others.
It's natural that economic policy would shift in response to unfavorable outcomes. This may mean severing free-trade agreements in favor of protectionism. But it remains to be seen whether these changes are drastic enough to alter foreign policy, and jeopardize military alliances we've since the last world war.
I keep on telling people that there is an extreme disconnect between the "upper" and "lower" echelons of society. The cultural/societal disconnect is stark and huge -- to the point where people can't even overcome it for millions of dollars!
Warning: There is now an extreme disconnect between the "upper" and "lower" echelons of society!
Also, once the general hits, watch him come out as a moderate, pragmatic leader. All the rhetoric was to win the Republican primaries and separate himself from all the bland conservatives.
Reagan administration's thoughts on him pestering them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-2...
Or in 1989, trump takes out a newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for 5 black teenagers, later the 5 are exonerated via DNA evidence: http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trump-and-...
I think his willingness to be honest and polarizing is a respectable quality, which is why some love him. But if he turns out to become moderate for the sake of PR, then there will really be nothing about him I can respect.
Leaving the EU will allow UK the flexibility to develop trade agreements with the world and increase their exports outside the EU. "Permanently poorer"? - this is propaganda.
In extreme cases, opportunism takes the upper hand, though, and people or parties simply move to where the votes are. One could argue even that is not a completely bad thing. What's wrong with a politician so devoted to his profession that he is willing to set aside his own preferences for those of the people he serves? In some sense, it is like a physician giving birth control recipes to those who want them while personally being against birth control. Hard to understand, maybe, and also not something one should expect from everybody, but not necessarily a sign of an evil mind.
The problem is that the Euro-area has not countercyclical stabilizers:
In USA, if some states have problems, the federal government will compensate the fall in spending. In the Euro-area, if a state have problems, not only it's not going to receive surplus from other countries but the troika is going to made it to kill internal demand.
So the Euro-area has procyclical automatisms.. What is totally crazy.
Recall that the southern states used to be so different from the northern ones they were willing to start a war over it.
Consider introducing 50% tariff for all IT related services coming from California. The business would be booming everywhere else in no time. If you get rid of those tariffs in 5-10 years maybe the net result would be better for people. It's not obvious at all that it wouldn't be.
99% of a company's employees would immediately "rat out" a company as an alternative to being personally faced with criminal liability. A board of directors would fall over themselves to change a company's management if they were personally faced with criminal liability.
Oh sure, there are a few CEOs willing to push the envelope too far. But ask Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling how that's working out for them. I'd say go ask "Kenny Boy" Lay, but alas, he departed the corporeal plane before his situation played itself out.
But the results of the dissatisfaction with the way globalization isn't working aren't optimal solutions (or even positive progress), they are simply symptoms of anger for which the political system is offering no good solutions (and often not even acknowledging).
I sometimes have a hard time working out what Americans understand by "the EU". Sometimes they seem to think of it as a country like the USA, sometimes they seem to think of it as a free trade zone like NAFTA. It's neither; it's a customs union with supranational governmental aspects designed from the start (for laudible historical reasons) to be heavily insulated from populism. The problem is that it's practically impossible to disentangle "insulated from populism" and "insulated from democracy".
Furthermore, people keep talking about the free trade zone as if they were children and the word "free" were a piece of candy. Free trade is not an absolute good and not a great thing when it stifles a country's growth. The US became an economic superpower not because of free trade but because of protectionism. Had the fledgling country engaged in free trade, sure, its consumers might have ended up with greater access to the world's markets, but it also would never have become an economic powerhouse. That's because preexisting industrial powers would have flooded the market with goods and stifled the formation of an American economic base. Maybe the US would have become a place for outsourcing of some kind, like an economic colony of sorts. Even today, the US is the world's most protectionist country. The only reason we hear so much talk of free trade is because as the unrivaled economic superpower of the world, it can easily flood weaker markets with its products. This renders these markets de facto economic colonies of the US (btw, "Chinese" manufacturing is really outsourced American manufacturing). For the same reason, the EU poses a threat to the proper formation of a strong post-Cold War economic base in the countries of Central Europe. There is a great disparity between members of the EU. I remember in 2003-04, Andrzej Sadowski of the Adam Smith Institute in Warsaw said that membership in the EU may be beneficial for Poland in the future, but that at the time, it was premature, that Poland needed to build up its economic base and bring it to level comparable to those in countries to the West of it so that it could compete with them. As it stands, Germany profits from this disparity because it has access to cheap labor, and the EU functions as a means to maintain that status quo. It also needs the free trade zone so that it can export its product without suffering tariffs. Unlike the US, without export, Germany is dead.
It's all too easy for Americans and wealthy Western countries to rattle on about free trade and the like when it is they that stand to benefit from it the most. The US has an empire to run and the wealthy Western powers want regional or even international dominance of some kind. They simply do it under a blanket of mendacious bromides about "unity" and "prosperity". Bollocks! The geopolitical tectonic plates are starting to shift and a new power balance will result from it along fault lines that are there and have been there. One ought to respect those fault lines instead of trying to build a Disneyland over it, believing that you can hold it all together through the power of positive thinking and vacuous mantras.
The US started as 13 colonies with quite different cultures and economies, and barely even the same language. It was not at all clear they would ever unite as one country, and wound up fighting a bitter and bloody war over their differences.
> The US became an economic superpower not because of free trade but because of protectionism.
I've heard a lot of reasons, but never that one. If protectionism made the US prosperous, why didn't the embargo have that affect on Cuba?
> free trade and the like when it is they that stand to benefit from it the most
Free trade benefits both parties equally. Otherwise, they wouldn't trade. Free trade is not forcibly taking things from others.
I have to disagree here - free trade benefits both involved parts (not necessarily equally). If I trade you my rice for your steel, I might gain 5% value and you might gain 50% value. That's still mutual benefit but not necessarily equal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage
People are always looking for these sorts of things, and many market mechanisms have sprung up which have the effect of evening them out.
Indeed, I was born and raised on the territory of the former Vermont Republic, which didn't join the Union until 1791. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Republic
What we've seen for the last 30 years is NOT free trade. It is wage / environmental arbitrage where capital moves at will from one tax haven to the next, and labor enjoys none of the same benefits.
Yet median wages and environmental protections have been trending upwards in China since they opened up in the 1970s. The same is true in western nations.
Environmental protections have certainly increased in the West - our lakes are no longer on fire.
But considering the population density of Asia and the increase in energy consumption, Mother Earth would be better off with all us gone - capitalism is not helping.
As a Westerner, it shouldn't be my job to be cajoled into letting someone else win, based on flimsy arguments like this. You'd have to have been brainwashed to do such a thing.
China will certainly win - should they create a society like Taiwan x 40.
and publications wonder why their readers are running. i can't even run fast enough from utter shit like that. or am i wrong and the world only consists of a few states in europe?!
you just cannot make this up.
Considering what an unfriendly place the world has been in the past centuries (diseases, terrible working conditions, decade-long wars) this is not an unreasonable statement to make. These things still exist, but certainly less pronounced when averaged over time and space.
Edit: See http://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-better...
MEP Daniel Hannan on the differences between the US Constitution and the EU's-