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Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

theatlantic.com

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Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#31

Post by tajen »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #6

In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalis…

Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fascists.

A hard-core split was bound to happen as long as liberals/socialists didn't want to hear about immigration quantity. And it may happen again in France, as long as lefties don't discuss about problems we have.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#32

Post by mtreis86 »

mrmffh wrote: post #2

I'd argue this is a positive trend. Hopefully it leads to more innovation in governance.

I agree. I find groups of people scary. Not in the anxiety manner. I mean that I don't know of a single instance of a person doing massive damage to anyone or any thing, when compared to damage by groups or by people with group backing. All the worst atrocities of the past few centuries were carried out by groups of people. The US constitution is supposed to protect individuals from groups, but that seems to have been (mostly) subverted in the name of preserving our institutions (banking).

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#33

Post by ajnin »

cm3 wrote: post #19
danieltillett wrote: post #8

This just the masses realising that they have been decapitated. In all western countries the intelligent are identified at a young age and brought into the ruling class via education. There is no one left to speak for the interests of the bottom 90% nor formulate a plan to change the status quo. Faced with this it is not surprising that the masses get restless and thrash out at any symbol of authority no matter the c…

I find that hard to believe. Those in power, which you classify as (more) intelligent, were afraid of their peer Yanis Varoufakis so much that they did everything to make him leave. They didn't understand his proposals (models) because the other finance ministers missed vital economic knowledge, or that's how it seems to me at least. If I looked for it, I could name many not-so-intelligent and uneducated ministers al…

They were afraid of Varoufakis because he wanted to change the economic model of the EU. He wanted to change the status quo, which their job is to protect. You say they were "not-so-intelligent an uneducated", I say they did their job well and were pretty good at manipulating public opinion.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#34

Post by Sacho »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #24
LoSboccacc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as the perfect storm, trust collapse is causing apathy, not desire to reform. when they say government is migrating toward a gerontocracy is not just because politician are from the older classes, but also because younger participate less in the democratic debate, whether in the first line or by voting. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Uk_general_el... https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images…

We didn't have apathy in the recent UK referendum, voter turnout was very high.

Voter turnout among the young was half compared to voter turnout by the elderly, I think, so that would reinforce parent's point.

Here's a FT article with a graph* of voter turnout by age - https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473... - it seems like, besides one particular anomaly, voter turnout among young people has been steadily declining and Brexit was a continuation of that trend.

* the graph in question - https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2F...

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#35

Post by Noseshine »

jacquesm wrote: post #15

If with 'around the world' they intend to mean 'The USA and the UK' then I'm all in agreement. But the rest of the world is not that much different from 12 months ago. The article sugggests strongly that these other countries had a completely different view of their governments in the recent past but I see very little evidence of that. But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) there definitely is a popu…

    > But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) 
    > there definitely is a populist shift in progress.
In Germany too, at least partially: The right-wing and very new "AfD", a relative newcomer, now has almost 1/10th of the votes (depending when you take the poll, results fluctuate).

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#37

Post by jacquesm »

tajen wrote: post #31
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #6

In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalis…

Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fas…

> lefties

Ah, one of those comments.

Most of the EU countries where immigration is currently an issue have had 'right wing' parties leading them for a very long time.

Immigration is just the easiest populist button to press to get a large number of people to vote against their own interests.

One of the problems underlying all this is not immigration per-se, but the rapid and unbounded expansion of the EU to include countries with a huge range of incomes and costs-of-life. Add to that the ability and willingness of people to leave behind their old lives and/or families in order to go abroad to make some money and you have an instantaneous problem.

But the powers that be have it right: in the longer term the only way the EU can work is by giving everybody the right to relocate to wherever they want. That way at some point it all levels out again.

Try to imagine a USA where someone from Texas would not be able to move to LA or NYC or the other way around. Border controls against movement on every state-border. If you find that hard to imagine try to come up with a really good argument why it should be any different within the EU.

Finally, there are people that wish to migrate to the EU from regions outside of it. The EU made a strategic mistake here, which is that they have been partially (together with the US) responsible for the destabilization of the region just outside of it. That this could lead to a huge influx of refugees was a risk they took knowingly, and that I feel it is only responsible to deal with. It would be nice if the countries that are not walking distance from those regions or that are protected by a body of water that is not easily navigable would take their responsibilities in this as well.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#38

Post by Noseshine »

DavidHm wrote: post #13
pilsetnieks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that the masses are dumb, and the ruling elites are smart?

I think that is what he is saying. Though he is saying that the ruling elites are ruling because they are smart, and not that the ruling elites are smart because they are ruling.

It's a circular definition though - it's not falsifiable, because if they are in power they must be smart, defining smart as "ability to get into power", if they can't get power evidently they are not smart enough... Not very useful, except if you enjoy making "winning" arguments that you can't lose.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#39

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #10
danieltillett wrote: post #8

This just the masses realising that they have been decapitated. In all western countries the intelligent are identified at a young age and brought into the ruling class via education. There is no one left to speak for the interests of the bottom 90% nor formulate a plan to change the status quo. Faced with this it is not surprising that the masses get restless and thrash out at any symbol of authority no matter the c…

So you're saying that the masses are dumb, and the ruling elites are smart?

> This is part of a larger divide that has been opening up between “mass populations” and “informed publics” (Edelman defined the latter group as those who have a college degree, regularly consume news media, and are in the top 25 percent of household income for their age group in a given country)

By Edelman's definition, it would appear his elites are more fit to govern than the masses (again, by his definition). That doesn't mean the latter are ignored. But if you put every issue to a vote, the people who have experienced less worldly exposure, less challenge in critical thinking, who are not consuming information from outside their narrow social circles and are not economically tied into the whole will always win. If you're a fan of good long-term decision making, that's a lousy prospect.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#40

Post by danieltillett »

narrator wrote: post #20
pilsetnieks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that the masses are dumb, and the ruling elites are smart?

It's not so much that the masses are dumb, but that propaganda techniques have been so refined and optimized that people have no idea who or what they have to fight to get what they want. There are a lot of ideological systems that are created simply to misdirect the public's attention away from actual important issues and toward infighting or intellectual dead ends or towards the goals of the propagandists. Let me g…

This is because the elites have all the big artillery. It is not the hereditary nobility that are providing the brains behind all this propaganda.

The masses know they are losing, they just don't have the leaders able to fight the ruling class and so are blindly lashing out at all authority - the current situation is rather like the Great Rising [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt

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