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Comment by akamaka | Hacker News Reader

I don't buy this argument. The author is trying to fit the Brexit vote into his broader thesis about economic inequality, but it doesn't quite fit the facts.

Does the author really consider the heavily pro-EU residents of Liverpool, Glasgow, or Northern Ireland to be establishment elites?

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I think his theory is inconsistent with the pro-brexit group being older, and the anti being younger.. But I think both the brexit group and Trump express the right wing disillusionment, which seem to be older people that thought they were in the political/economic in group and ended up marginalized with nothing relevant to the globally connected youth. I'm not sure older Scotts would have believed they were in the in-group in terms of UK power or economy.

I think the relation seems plausible on the surface because the same groups that were pro-brexit were the ones who are pro-trump, the /pol/-lurking, redpill types for example. I'm not sure it fits into inequality too, but Brexit has a similar mantra of "taking back the country" from a larger authority and had populist elements. In that sense, I do agree it is a reaction to the "elites" in some people's minds.

I think we should be talking about inequality of opportunity rather than inequality of wealth. Someone seems to have kicked the social ladder above the middle class.

We forking off onto a tangent, but one would say in the current system, wealth buys opportunity, so they are the same. Indeed, if opportunity were near equal for all, then many fewer would be complaining.

So why were young people overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the EU?

Hey i m no expert. I would wager the young are more informed and they know that the EU is the least of their problems (In fact, less than a problem). Or their young age allowed them to feel less desperate about their prospects.

You could easily flip that around and say that older people have the more informed opinion in addition to more life experience.

This comment is emblematic of the point Greenwald is trying to make here. If only those old people had more of the correct facts and the better answers, then they would line up behind the best decisions.

There are many possible explanations. I'm sure it will be the talking point of many studies in the following months/years. Some things I can think of:

- They've grown up in a united Europe, and may have a different view of their world than the older generation.

- The younger generation is more likely to be bilingual, while the older generation speaks only English. That means they have more experience with other cultures, and fear them less.

- They have less ties to Britain, and perhaps more likely to consider a career on the mainland.

- The younger generation really is less racist.

- The younger generation is less affected by illusions of grandeur about their empire and relative importance in the world.

I don't buy this argument. The author is trying to fit the Brexit vote into his broader thesis about economic inequality, but it doesn't quite fit the facts.

I echo that.

While I completely agree with "Western Establishment Failure" being at work, it cannot be reduced to "globalization loosers".

More factors at work:

1) "collusive arrangements" emerge over time within societies. The EU served as proxy against those collusions in many countries (Freedom of movement, Gay Rights, Customer Protection), as did the Unionists for many against the Federalists during US Civil War. But over time new collusions emerge.

Many Europeans don't see the many positives the EU brought them, but fear the precedent it set in implementing those positives (usually by ruling over a country's laws) now being used for many more collusions.

2) social media's impact on western culture like

- "Filter Bubbles" (Recommended/Shared content forming personalized propaganda) and

- encouraging communicational behaviour different than the classical "shame"- and "guilt"-culture models, in that in online discussions guilt and shame is virtually non-existent for one self. They are only attributes to lay on others

- both are translating into real-world elite-phenomenons like "vindictive protectiveness" - were things like restrooms become a heated debate, but old-school-phenomenons like safety, income inequality, health are not

3) the loss of the West's common enemy. Nations are "imagined communites" and while they are made of many things, the finishing usually happened when the common enemy emerged. And that's working for supra-nations as well. The Soviet Bloc is gone and our new "culprits" don't fit into its shoes: Not China, not Russia and also not Islam

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