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How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

nytimes.com

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Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#81

Post by anexprogrammer »

Fifer82 wrote: post #35
anexprogrammer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends where you live. In my part of the UK people were overwhelmingly in favour of leave. I wouldn't typically mention I was a remain voter as it was near sure to get me a discussion. Very few claimed the immigration directly - t'was about jobs, or more precisely the lack of them, therefore immigration. A good part of the region is not yet out of the 2008 recession, and house price growth is a joke. When…

I am not sure what I am saying, but I believe that a lot of the people voting, do not have the intelligence to vote. I met a couple of neds in Spain recently on the day of the vote, and they were like "Take it back, init, take it back and be great". I was like "What does that mean though??? Take back what??". "Take it back! We just need to run ourselves". Despite almost an hours worth of discussion, they were passion…

There's always been a percentage who would vote for, shall we say, simplistic reasons. They're the group least likely to actually go and vote I believe.

But some kid latching onto the oft used soundbite of "take back control" (from whom, why?) is little different to "I vote Labour because my dad always did", or "I voted Blair because he has a nice smile" (someone actually said that to me after the 97 election).

I just consider it background noise, and might be perhaps 20% of all votes.

What was different is that they managed to get a good turnout, and in cases where it wasn't about jobs/EU migration it was about London overlords telling them what to do whilst simultaneously neglecting them (take back control).

The messages resonated perfectly with their life experiences.

Unfortunately the irony of giving the UK govt a good kicking via an EU Brexit vote that will remove more benefits than problems for them will be lost on them.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#82

Post by guard-of-terra »

madaxe_again wrote: post #70
guard-of-terra wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"he voted to fuck his own son over" Now, that was both emotional and irrational.

So, despite his sons residency and employment both being dependent on the uk's continued membership of the EU, you think this was a rational, kind decision?

I don't think they're dependent on the UK's membership of the EU that much.

First, there's plenty of people not from EU who participate in European research on European grants. Think Russians in CERN and so on.

Second, secession from EU doesn't mean freedom of travel will be thwarted for scientists. UK was already not on Schengen, so what? At worst they'll have get a visa every few years.

In short, that person might consider that his son will figure it out.

Regarding "kind" - "kind" is irrational. Rational is often not kind and kind is often not rational.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#83

Post by douche »

reddytowns wrote: post #66
yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

I'm a little amazed at the tone of this article. People rent a home, and then exploit the democratic process in a beggar-thy-potential-neighbors strategy. They use things like rent control and other anti-migrant policies (e.g. anti-Google bus policies in SF, anti-Hijab laws in France) to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Because her wealthy uncles lost their job, and had a small drop in their standard of li…

"Tech bros" don't like their jobs outsourced to India. That's comparable to your examples, yet they are mostly upper class. In addition, people are concerned about things that effect themselves . The elites don't care about the neighborhoods they don't live in, or the jobs they don't have to compete for. But they do care about profit, and about getting richer. In all of the examples you gave, that motivation would wo…

Nobody really cares about neighborhoods that they don't live in, so I don't see why that makes elites particularly terrible people.

I cringe when I see my customers outsource their IT to India, but that is mostly because it immediately makes my life much more difficult. There are fantastic Indian engineers and sysadmins, but they aren't the ones working the grunt jobs at these cut-rate outsourcing firms...

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#84

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

CM30 wrote: post #60
caconym_ wrote: post #20

I may be reading this too late at night, but the theory seems to be that our benevolent, perfectly logical Ivy League-educated overlords regrettably have to break a few eggs to make a delicious omelette of economic prosperity for all, and those broken eggs are enough to make people throw up their hands and vote for Trump/Brexit/whatever just for a chance to cling to the present, the good old days, at the expense of t…

Pretty much this. And that's the issue with globalisation; it's great for those at the top, decent for those at the very bottom and often rather awful for those in the middle. The votes for Brexit, Trump, various far left and right wing parties, etc are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself". They've seen how little any of this is doing for them as workers, and how every system…

Globalisation is much more than that actually. It is basically a technological change, happening throughout the last couple of centuries, that enables people to operate at any point in the world. Of course, the ability is not evenly spread out. First it was the Europeans who could colonise the world. Then it was big corporations who could set up shop abroad and fly their managers in. Tourism from the first world was kind of a fallout of that too.

Today it is not just rich people but pretty much everyone. It is much more easy to migrate from a different culture and then stick your own via the internet. This makes migration much more bearable for the migrants, especially if they can tell themselves that it's just temporary. And a lot of people are migrating, because wealth is just not evenly spread.

This is all nice until you realise the difference of cultures. In the 80's it was no big deal if someone at the other end of the world was "wrong" (about how to lead your life, what to eat, etc.). If that someone moves into the house down the street that's suddenly a different matter. What if his "wrong" spreads?

On top of that, corporations have less of a need to play well with a regional population if they can move any place of the world. This has resulted in a power shift towards corporations with an impact on politicians (think revolving door politics).

The result is that many people feel abandoned, betrayed, and left helpless under a deluge of "wrong". And finally they want revenge. Let it all burn down and build something that's more like how it used to be.

But those times are gone. We cannot wind the time back to the 80's unless we roll back the internet. Because the root cause of it all is not betrayal or corruption, or a conspiracy to establish a new world order.

It is my belief that this century will be characterised by how humanity will deal with the issue of a globalised world, with contradicting cultures and beliefs. Are we going to raise fences everywhere, forming blocks protected by new iron curtains, hiding in our shells? Or are we going to form one all encompassing harmonised culture that you better not deviate from? My hope is that humanity learns that the world is not going to end just because someone is wrong on the internet or down the block.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#85

Post by MagnumOpus »

CM30 wrote: post #56
flukus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of London voted to leave, that's enough to change the outcome. I don't think pretending there is a huge geographical divide is particularly helpful.

There was a huge divide in London too. Places like Camden, Kensington and Barnet overwhelmingly voted remain. Other places like Havering, Barking and Dagenham and Bexley voted to leave. And some areas (like Newham) were extremely close as far as percentages go. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-eu-referendum... General rule seems to be that places with lots of university students or large businesses tend…

> General rule seems to be that places with lots of university students or large businesses tended to vote remain and those with either deeply conservative populations or a lot of immigration tended to vote leave

Doesn't think that is true. Lewisham, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets are some of the places with the most immigrants and remain won in all of these places by obscenely large margins.

Maybe votes were more along racial lines - White English (especially the older ones) voting to leave, but people with a more colourful Asian/Caribbean heritage voting to remain?

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#86

Post by dageshi »

return0 wrote: post #80
objectivistbrit wrote: post #47

I'm pro-economic liberty and voted for Brexit. Every analysis like this has tunnel vision: yes, the free trade opened up by the EU brought prosperity to an entire continent. Had we been voting for the 1970s era EEC, I'd have gladly voted Remain. But in 40 years the EEC has evolved into the EU, with a constitution, a parliament, a president, a national anthem, a flag, supreme law-making powers and a currency. Maybe th…

You make it sound as if the UK was not in the EU all these years. You had bargaining and Veto powers to steer the EU to your direction, but i can't remember when you did so. Probably that's the reason why most EU citizens are indifferently watching you leave.

I believe the UK tried very hard to avoid the creation of the euro but when it became apparant that it was going to happen anyway it got itself an opt out. I think after that the UK largely disengaged because the common view was the currency couldn't succeed without a much higher level of political integration than was being proposed at the time and the British public simply wasn't interested.

So I think you're incorrect, the UK did try but failed to steer the EU in its direction because it was outvoted.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#87

Post by pjc50 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #74
objectivistbrit wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote wasn't mine. I upvoted you to cancel it out. But thanks for dishonestly implying I'm racist (thereby proving my point), when my entire comment was on economic issues. By integration I mean political integration. I think very large states have scale problems, large democracies in particular. (Look at India or the US). You either end up with populist parties who need to appeal to the lowest common denominator…

Sorry, it just pissed me off almightily that I got downmodded for asking a question, so went for plan b: bait. Those "ancient nations" are mostly less than a century old. Europe has been a superstate several times previously, although it admittedly hasn't lasted under political or religious hegemony.

The age of nations is quite a key difference in how things are seen from the UK (300 years old, with England claiming 800 years of constitutional monarchy with only one interruption) vs the rest of Europe, much of which wasn't in its current form or system of government in 1950.

To Europe, the EU represents stability. To the UK, it represents change.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#88

Post by reddytowns »

douche wrote: post #83
reddytowns wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tech bros" don't like their jobs outsourced to India. That's comparable to your examples, yet they are mostly upper class. In addition, people are concerned about things that effect themselves . The elites don't care about the neighborhoods they don't live in, or the jobs they don't have to compete for. But they do care about profit, and about getting richer. In all of the examples you gave, that motivation would wo…

Nobody really cares about neighborhoods that they don't live in, so I don't see why that makes elites particularly terrible people. I cringe when I see my customers outsource their IT to India, but that is mostly because it immediately makes my life much more difficult. There are fantastic Indian engineers and sysadmins, but they aren't the ones working the grunt jobs at these cut-rate outsourcing firms...

I'm not arguing they are terrible people. I'm arguing they are people, and like everyone else they are for their own interests. The point is that people, regardless whether their ethics are similar to the average person or not, that have too much power, can be dangerous to the world as a whole if not kept in check.

If we allow them to run roughshod over everyone else, we will be worse off because of it.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#89

Post by pjc50 »

return0 wrote: post #80
objectivistbrit wrote: post #47

I'm pro-economic liberty and voted for Brexit. Every analysis like this has tunnel vision: yes, the free trade opened up by the EU brought prosperity to an entire continent. Had we been voting for the 1970s era EEC, I'd have gladly voted Remain. But in 40 years the EEC has evolved into the EU, with a constitution, a parliament, a president, a national anthem, a flag, supreme law-making powers and a currency. Maybe th…

You make it sound as if the UK was not in the EU all these years. You had bargaining and Veto powers to steer the EU to your direction, but i can't remember when you did so. Probably that's the reason why most EU citizens are indifferently watching you leave.

The UK has essentially opted out of everything it could, but with one big exception: not delaying free movement for the accession of Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.

Now that anger has been roused about immigration, a substantial part of the Brexit vote wants to end free movement altogether, which is simply not achievable in the EU.

Re: How a Quest by Elites Is Driving ‘Brexit’ and Trump

#90

Post by ZenoArrow »

objectivistbrit wrote: post #47

I'm pro-economic liberty and voted for Brexit. Every analysis like this has tunnel vision: yes, the free trade opened up by the EU brought prosperity to an entire continent. Had we been voting for the 1970s era EEC, I'd have gladly voted Remain. But in 40 years the EEC has evolved into the EU, with a constitution, a parliament, a president, a national anthem, a flag, supreme law-making powers and a currency. Maybe th…

> "Maybe the populations of France, Spain, Italy et al will accept that they can't fund welfare states by borrowing in perpetuity and stop voting in radical left-wing governments."

I agree with a lot of what you said, apart from this statement.

There are problems with borrowing in a system based on debt, particularly if the interest on that debt is in the hands of profit-motivated enterprises. However, that is not the only way of funding public spending. It's possible to shift to a debt-free money system where new money reaches the system through government spending. That way there's no debt to pay back, and the level of public spending would only need to be limited by a need to keep a manageable rate of inflation.

In other words, whilst I agree there are problems with how public spending is funded right now, the problem isn't the radical left per se, as there are ways of running a fiscally responsible 'radical left' government.

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