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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

Good article. I thought the statement ""The true common denominator, she found, is anti-globalism"" makes a lot of sense.

For those of us who like to maintain national sovernty (thus dislike 'trade' deals) and mistrust globalists, the news media does seem biased.

I am in my 60s, and most of my life I could be considered a slightly conservative democrat, but in the last decade I have embraced a philosophy of 'small is better' and 'distributed is better than centralized.' It was an eye opener for me how much the news media favored Clinton and in general treated Sanders unfairly. Anyway, living through last year really made me believe that the news media is just a tool for the financial elite.

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> in the last decade I have embraced a philosophy of 'small is better' and 'distributed is better than centralized.

I also feel this way, and as a result identify more and more as "conservative" in that sense, and my own work is almost entirely focused on building tools for smaller and smaller organizations. I put very little stock in new government solutions to social problems. But there is a HUGE caveat:

We have centralized systems right now that work sort of OK and people are relying on them to survive. We simply do NOT have the decentralized systems yet to replace them. For that reason I do not support the conservative platform of destroying centralized government. It's premature.

The tech for decentralized governance and survival is proceeding rapidly. Solar panels, 3d printing, blockchains, crowdfunding, same-day shipping... We are very close to not needing the welfare state and its monopoly utilities. But we are not there today, and to try to dismantle it first is dangerous.

I think the reason people want to destroy the welfare state first is that they think we won't have the motivation to build the decentralized infrastructure until we have the centralized infrastructure taken away. But I think that's wrong. Corporations like Amazon are not yet providing truly decentralized infrastructure. That stuff, things like Ethereum, are coming, but we barely understand them.

The same applies to housing, agriculture, etc. We have big agriculture, but little agriculture, that's truly independent from the big chemical companies, is just not a freestanding system yet.

A question only intended as such: could you explain what you mean by the word "globalists"? Thanks!

e: I should clarify that I'm not being sarcastic or snarky and am genuinely interested in what "globalists" means -- I've never read it or used it, I am hesitant to look it up because I feel it might not get a fair shake in whatever I read, and was wondering how this user uses it.

I'll try to do both sides justice although I'm sure there are people representing either side that could correct me on many aspects...

I think of 'globalist' as being something of a perjorative/having at least a slight negative connotation. It describes a perspective where all humans are part of a global community/family. You could contrast it with 'nationalism' (which has it's own negative connotations--the two sides provide derision against each other) in which nations should be independent and sovereign.

Critics of globalism argue that it centralizes too much control, planning, finances and government, leaving locals with less autonomy. Nationalists are not fans of e.g., the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, etc.

Critics of nationalism argue that international cooperation brings many benefits and that nationalists are merely racist or xenophobic. It's harder to list organizations that globalists are not a fan of because most nations have at least one nationalist movement. Brexit would be a good example in the Anglosphere.

Yeah, I'm interested in the original user's self-identification as someone who mistrusts globalists. Thank you for the summary!

Another criticism of globalism is the global labor pool, which is a major problem in the US. People can't unionize when the jobs can be shipped to a country with a lower quality of life. It takes away workers' leverage and guts the middle class.

The shame is in the blaming of the 'foreign' workers for this problem. This is a problem fundamental to the idea of exchange value itself. The solution is not to isolate from international reality.

> The solution is not to isolate from international reality.

What do you mean by this? If you mean protectionism isn't the answer, then I have to disagree.

Global trade between countries with vastly different economies is simply not fair and continues the policies that keeps the poorer country poor. For example, Mexico has a minimum wage of $0.48/hr, and its citizens have a pretty poor quality of life. When a rich country ships its jobs to the poor country, it facilitates the policies that lead to a poor quality of life for the citizens of the poor country and leads to a race to the bottom to see which country can offer the cheapest labor, all while gutting the middle class of the richer country. Sure, more wealth is created in the process due to capital movement optimization, but what does it matter if that wealth is only given to the capital owners?

I agree that we shouldn't blame foreign workers. It's the fault of the politicians and economists who made global trade between vastly different countries the norm.

A globalist is someone, usually a politician or corporate executive, who thinks that national borders shouldn't matter, and that people, capital, and goods must flow freely over them. It's often used pejoratively (no one calls themselves globalist). For example, Euroskeptics call almost anyone in the EU government globalist.

This is a capitalist's pan-utopian dream: people, capital, and goods flowing freely over borders. Almost as if nations didn't exist!

What about taxes and the [re]distribution of benefits? [sound of rusty monkey wrench entering complex gear mechanism].

I'm not convinced of any arguments against 'globalism' per se, but I think you are using two different notions; globalism vs internationalism.

Yeah the whole "globalist" thing is stupid to me. There are better ways to articulate the position that don't originate from conspiracy theorists.

A "Globalist" is someone or some entity that seeks to take advantage deregulation and the liberalization of financial activities. Essentially capital flow moves where the profit margins are maximized with no regard for the nation state

Isn't that privatization (at global scale)?

There are many ways to look at it, but the way that seems to get most people riled up is

"one who seeks to centralize political and economic power by eliminating competing political and economic structures & institutions"

...implied is that they are doing it for their own gain, and not for the benefit of mankind.

Remember one truth: dictators come about through a centralizing of power, not a decentralizing it.

I can't help but come to exactly the same conclusions.

I'm not exactly a young guy either so maybe it's having lived through (i.e. seem) more. Or maybe it's being grumpy suspicious old guys. Or maybe we are right.

Whatever it is it seems there are a fair number of people who feel the same way at this point, more than there used to be.

I'm the opposite, perhaps it's because I've seen politicians in my country (UK) blame a larger entity (the EU) for many of their own failings. It's been an easy target for them and sadly I only see that increasing over the coming years.

Globalism would be truly great if consumers and workers could actually reap the benefits.

Globalization (perhaps not actual globalism) has lead to billions of people being lifted out of abject poverty. They have not become middle class consumerists themselves, but globalization has lifted them out of abject poverty.

One may ask if domestic as well as foreign/alien (international) companies could pay the locals more... but at some point, paying the locals more disincentivizes globalization (it is no longer a competitive advantage with respect to the home country workforce).

The concepts of globalism and free trade derive from simple Western economic models that are incomplete and have many externalities that bear examination. The Samuelson paper I reference elsewhere in these posts is just one example of how the simple models fail.

Most economic models omit the social aspects of life. In the drive to "globalize" societies, groups, families have been destroyed, religious and social communities relocated, torn apart, and decimated by economic forces in ways we barely understand. The search for meaning (factors that economics fails to address) continues nonetheless. The yearning for the old life is strong but control lies, for now (as usual), with those who have money.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that a model is a model of only one part of a world (and possibly incorrect at that).

There is a simple dichotomy that challenges every individual in our society.

At the personal level, we are told that we "need to take care of ourselves."

Simultaneously, at the macro level, we are told that we need to "trust in established institutions." Government, corporate, etc. Institutions that are ever more "globalized."

Well, which is it? More and more people are realizing -- re-learning -- that you have to have local control in order to take care of yourself.

And, if you can't take care of yourself, what does the rest matter? There's only so far that the rhetoric of "sacrifice" will take a social system (aka society) that is destroying its inhabitants.

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