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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

#91

Post by pjc50 »

return0 wrote: post #72
CM30 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself" I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else `. It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she st…

Replacing the "elite" with an underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" is begging for a void.

Come on, we're software engineers; we know how crazy it is to turn off a working system without having a viable plan for its replacement.

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

#92

Post by TelmoMenezes »

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…

> Had we been voting for the 1970s era EEC, I'd have gladly voted Remain.

The UK was not a signatory of any relevant treaty post-EEC. It opted out of the Schengen Area, of the Euro zone and even of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The idea that the UK was being controlled by a distant bureaucracy in Brussels is one of the many lies told by tabloids. The EU is far from perfect, but the UK was never in it in any meaningful sense. It was mostly being oppressed by tomato size regulations and things of that sort. Ironically, they will probably still have to comply to all that if they wish to maintain trade agreements with Europe. This entire thing was based on lies and disgust at "experts". And a good dose of xenophobia.

I have lived in the UK and I have never seen a EU flag being flown anywhere (unlike what you see in any other EU country). It was always more likely to see an American of Commonwealth-country flag than an EU one.

There is no EU constitution, by the way. It was rejected by referendum in several member states and the project died.

The UK already enjoyed access to EU markets while giving almost nothing in return to the common project. In fact, many people in Europe felt that the UK was participating mostly to prevent further integration. Even British comedy thought so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE

I think younger people see things differently, are less xenophobic and less attached to nationalist ideas, borders and walls. The next generation might have brought real participation of the UK in the EU (i.e. real skin in the game). Unfortunately, Baby Boomers still had another social contract to wipe their asses with before they checked out. So here we are.

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

#93

Post by gambiting »

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…

>>stop voting in radical left-wing government

I'd like to point out that nearly every government in EU is right-wing at the moment. The UK government that is apparently giving so many benefits away and letting so many immigrants in was right-wing for quite a while now, so I don't think it's the "radical left-wing" which is the problem here.

And the reason why these issues as you called them are not being addressed is that maybe not everyone sees them as issues? I'd love to live long enough to see creation of United States of Europe, where my own nationality was just replaced with one EU passport - but a lot of people are vehemently against that, thinking that national identities matter in 2016.

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

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

pyrale wrote: post #8
misja111 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the average banker has a greater desire for self-enrichment than say, the average lawyer or the average sales manager. And anyway, there's nothing wrong with a certain amount of greediness in a capitalist system, this is what drives innovation and efficiency. The problem with banking has been that the system is broken. Unlike other companies, mismanaged banks cannot go bankrupt because they drag the ent…

> And anyway, there's nothing wrong with a certain amount of greediness in a capitalist system, this is what drives innovation and efficiency. I wonder how many years will pass before people realize this mantra is an article of faith.

It's convenient for people to believe in it because it's a self-serving belief.

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

#95

Post by tankenmate »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #49
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early in my career I regularly visited towns like Middlesborough and Burnley, installing IT systems. There was a lot of unskilled and semi-skilled work available at those businesses that has either been shipped out to China or automated away. Those jobs aren't coming back, whether we are in the EU or not.

This is it exactly. Staying (and therefore nothing changing) was a really bad option for millions of people. Brexit was change. And maybe, just maybe it would be a change for good. Staying and project fear did not offer hope.

And yet without a goal and a plan voting for Brexit is just as bad.

Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor. Fear is not an option. -- James Cameron

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

#96

Post by erikb »

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…

Not 100% what the article said. Yes, prosperity for all is what the elite wants to achieve. But, they have a different understanding what "prosperity for all" means. For the normal person it may not mean "more growth, more efficiency" but a stable life, job, apartment. The assumption is that most people want less risk not more gain, while the people at the top think more gain is what everybody wants.

Just that much explaining the article. My personal opinion is that discussing the elite as psychopaths who just want to exploit humanity as boring. Yes these people exist and at the top there may be more than in the middle, but it's simply not common human behaviour. Most people want to be geniunely valuable to the other people around them. Your boss wants to make a good impression on you, etc. But the understanding of the world and how the different factors of your life influence you differently than the factors of other people's life influences them, that is what leads people to make different decisions and set different priorities.

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

#97

Post by venomsnake »

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…

Call it the syndrome of vox.com - there was this article about how Bernie's trade protectionism will have a "price" of depriving millions of third world countries' citizens of chances to develop and escape poverty.

I blinked twice or trice to see if they were not joking. But no - they were seriously thinking that some other's country citizens' problems should be considered equal to the US citizen ones by the President of US. I agree that all people are equal, but elected officials/statesmen should always consider their constituents couple of orders of magnitude more equal than the rest of the people.

The people right now want a real statesmen like Bismarck:

"The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier."

The US and British (and a lot others) working and lower middle classes want to hear that they are more important to their own government than the foreigners.

And Trump and Brexiters are the only ones that give that message. So was Sanders while campaigning.

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

#98

Post by SeanDav »

madaxe_again wrote: post #61
Fifer82 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the nature of our democracy, however. One could argue that one has a duty to educate, but you cannot force knowledge and reason upon people who do not wish it. I saw much of the same on the brexit vote - one that stood out was someone i'd always thought was an intelligent man (he used to run a substantial investment bank), who I found screaming, froth-flecked, in my face about how I was a traitor for not voti…

You know, I have heard this argument used a few times. If you are intelligent, you voted to remain, if you are not intelligent, you voted to leave. So blame lack of intelligence on not getting a vote you wanted, because people that disagree with you must not be intelligent - right?

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

#99

Post by rahimnathwani »

reddytowns wrote: post #50
rahimnathwani wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cotton should be planted where there is the most fertile soil etc." Nitpick: this statement is about absolute advantage, whereas Ricardo emphasised comparative advantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Ricardo.... Imagine that you're better than me at everything (both programming and needlework). You can program three times as fast, and sew twice as fast as I can. Does that mean you should do al…

Yes, but at a certain threshold that is no longer true due to logistics. For instance, I could try to sell back all the plastic bags I got at the grocery store, and even if I folded them flat, made sure they were clean and ready to reuse, no matter the price, the grocery store owner would with all likelihood refuse to buy them from me. Because, regardless of how much money would be saved from buying my bags over the…

My simplified example was designed to demonstrate the difference between absolute advantage and comparative advantage, and show that there are gains from trade, even when one party has absolute advantage for all output goods.

There is no doubt that transactions costs and other friction make some potential exchanges uneconomical. So, what you say is true. But it doesn't help or hinder my explanation, and is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.

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

#100

Post by Nursie »

pjc50 wrote: post #91
return0 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself" I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else `. It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she st…

Replacing the "elite" with an underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" is begging for a void. Come on, we're software engineers; we know how crazy it is to turn off a working system without having a viable plan for its replacement.

Software != Politics.

Revolutions and other acts that tear things down do often result in worse outcomes, yet sometimes the tearing down is necessary, regardless.

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