Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World | Hacker News Reader

Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

theatlantic.com

194 pointsrandomname2223 comments

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-capitalist. Capitalism operates quite well in a fair and open market with a strong rule of law. But Neoliberalism is not this. Neoliberalism is destroying public institutions and utilities through financial plunder and then selling the organisation whole-sale and off market at bargain basement prices to the corrupt politician's corrupt mate in the private sector who then goes and cuts services, jacks prices, and gouges the captive public with their new found monopoly, then back channels the money through the lobbyists to the political party that enabled it, and calls it progress... and then the people cheer that the institution is 'profitable' again)

[Edit: sorry. this rant is a little off topic...]

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.

> 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.

Another mistake regarding extraEU immigration is that they put all the responsibility on the Schengen border countries instead of creating a common solution for that.

> a common solution

I'm sorry for my naivety but what does that mean? I've heard this so many times. Do they want German troops on their borders? Do they want to sit back and relax while Germany feeds, clothes, and shelters their troops and law enforcement?

Now, a common solution for the refugee crisis is not possible because the problem is not the refugee crisis. The problem is that the EU is TOO WEAK.

Perhaps a naive first step towards a solution could be that all member states cede the right to tax income to the European Union. We could follow up in a few years by ceding VAT to the EU as well. Follow the money. Member states shouldn't "contribute" towards funding the EU. The EU should have the right to collect taxes.

I'm sure there are a lot of subtleties involved here but this is what I see from outside. I'd appreciate any insight as to why the naive approach is valid or invalid.

The EU should have the right to collect taxes.

I'm sure there are a lot of subtleties involved here but this is what I see from outside. I'd appreciate any insight as to why the naive approach is valid or invalid.

a) Would require a constitutional change in many EU states, especially Germany where some of the changes to the financial ESM were challenged: http://europeanlawblog.eu/?p=1057

b) Collecting taxes implies full budgetary control over EU states. This leads to ...

c) It would be very, very unpopular, especially in the current environment. It was bad enough when Greece effectively had to hand a budget veto to its creditors. Trying to make taxation EU-wide is basically a red flag to populist Eurosceptic movements everywhere.

Remember, the US only regards Federal sovereignty as superior to State sovereignty as a result of a brutal civil war the outcome of which is still not fully accepted. In the EU the member states are still sovereign.

At the very least, have a vetting + tracking implemention at the outer borders. As far as I can tell they had and did nothing. They had no plan, no structures in place, no way to track migrants entering Europe, nothing. That is just asking for chaos, trouble, and pissed off groups of local people.

Basically, all I see is a blanket "let's open the borders" call, that allowed people to simply cross a border. It renders the concept of borders, border-control, visas, regulations, passports all of that as null and void. For years, we've all followed the rule of law, visas and passports for travel, and now all of a sudden none of that matters because...?

The EU had a common border agency system for many years, had a way to track migrants, and had structures for this.

Yet they failed in late 2014, because Greece couldn't continue funding the Greek part of them anymore, and refused funding from Germany for them (because Germany said they'd only fund Greek border guard if they'd be replaced with FRONTEX officers).

That finally happened in late 2015.

You mean, something like a EUROPEAN BORDER AND COAST GUARD?

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/sec...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Border_and_Coast_Guar...

Or, its predecessor, FRONTEX?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontex

You are saying immigration is not preventable. The other camp says it is. They vote against EU - and now they've demonstrated that immigration can be limited, so the first camp was wrong. So which camp was right and which was stubborn?

In the meantime, the cost was huge for all parties, so all the pro-immigration camp has succeeded is to increase the cost of stopping immigration.

And it's not even about intra-EU migration. It's probably about the number of international visas granted.

I didn't even have an opinion on the Brexit. All I notice is there is little tolerance or understanding for the Leave camp.

You are saying immigration is not preventable

No, he isn't.

He isn't saying immigration is not preventable, but he's saying:

> In the longer term the only way the EU can work is by giving everybody the right to relocate to wherever they want

and about non-EU immigration:

> I feel it is only responsible [...] to deal with the large influx [associated with] the destabilization of the region just outside it.

The trouble with putting all "immigration" into a single category is that it conflates so many different things.

International visas are currently not harmonised. The UK is and has been free to run a regime that is as liberal or as hostile as it wants. Non-EU migration is not the fault of the EU.

Intra-EU migration is tied (politically) to the single market. The EU is currently making this clear to Switzerland. The cost of stopping intra-EU migration is leaving the single market, which is potentially a huge cost.

And then there's the real problem: a lot of people who the public considers to be "immigrants" are actually local nationals with nonwhite skin. All of the Bataclan killers were French nationals! There's no immigration policy that could have made a difference here without also having a time machine.

Once you realise that people complaining about "immigrants" also mean "non-white local nationals", suddenly there's no solution. Then you realise that people promising a solution are at the top of the slippery slope leading to the Final Solution, the very thing the EU was set up to prevent ever happening again.

And that's why MP Jo Cox was murdered a few days before the vote.

Your last paragraph is a Godwin point. The first thing that would avoid a war between EU and UK would be tolerance for their point of view with a discussion about immigration without everyone throwing arms in the air and saying "they're all fascists" (which I have heard this week with a lot of anti-british hate).

Yes, immigrants who have been accepted are all UK nationals and they belong there now. Now have we asked the country side UK people whether they want to distribute more visas in 2017 to non-EU, highly skilled, foreign workers, followed by a passport in 10 years? I'm being specific here because liberals tend to conflate xenomurderers with people who want a honest discussion about visa quantities.

Same thing in France. We are still allocating tens of thousands of visas to non-skilled non-refugee immigrants: "Family" visas - aka get your brother in, and all your family can immigrate. We also have the free hospital policy and we've made mistakes with massively accepting people for medical tourism. I have nothing against existing French nationals and I have been the first one to protest aside them against police/administration racism. But we haven't succeeded the battle of the ideas and, as you mention, we have created terrorists out of native French citizen who were exposed to racism. Whether it's the school which isn't free enough, or there university which isn't free enough, or the taxes for the poor which aren't low enough, or specific language/culture classes which don't transmit or values, there is a failure in our integration process. And until we guarantee that we integrate newcomers with our values, I want to postpone non-mandatory immigration as long as there's not enough budget for their teachers.

One of our values is that you, as a French person of 2nd generation, teach your kids to not burn the flag of the country you're in. Another is that we've fought for a century so our women are free, so there will be no sign of submission in women (and the church needs to align too). Another one is, if you're in, don't swap your PhD for smuggling 10k€ of illegal goods after 3 years (which I've seen). Another one is that school is free, so your son better work hard before you complain about racism.

Oh and before you complain more about racism, if I invite you home for programming lessons, don't touch my 8-year old niece (which I've seen). The guy didn't even go to jail, he was merely told off in a police interview with his parents (he's 16). I didn't want to say there's an anti-white movement, but when that happened, in 2015 and together with the two Paris attacks, I started wondering. And it's time we reset equal rules for everyone.

So there is a political question to answer, in every country, about how many visas we issue in each category, how we proceed to integrate everyone, and still make it fair for countryside people. And as long as the liberal answer is "Welcome everyone, all criticizers are racists!", then the answer will be... racism.

> Yes, immigrants who have been accepted are all UK nationals and they belong there now.

No, being an intra-EU migrant under EU free movement does not automatically make you a UK national. You retain your original nationality unless and until you go through the naturalisation process, which few have bothered with because it costs >£1500 and until now does not convey much benefit.

This is why people are worried about the Conservative party leadership candidates refusing to rule out expelling EU nationals - millions of people, some of whom have been here for years, are potentially affected.

> Now have we asked the country side UK people whether they want to distribute more visas in 2017 to non-EU highly skilled foreign workers, followed by a passport 10 years later?

No we haven't, but that's nothing to do with the EU? Generally the pressure has been to reduce "immigration", so the non-EU visa rules have been made more onerous, especially spousal visas.

> No, being an intra-EU migrant under EU free movement does not automatically make you a UK national

Good, because I wasn't talking about those, slight misunderstanding. "Immigrant who have been accepted" = visa holder who is now a citizen = for example a ultra-highly-skilled newly-UK-national born in India.

> but that's nothing to do with the EU?

Absolutely nothing, and that's the problem: The English haven't been asked whether they wanted to increase visas, but their intelligencia did it anyway. So next time they had an opportunity to vote, be sure they voted against whatever the intelligencia wants, whatever it cost. Brexit was a vote against both their governing class and against their upper economic class (London). Yes, the cost is huge, but what other choice were they given?

> misunderstanding

That's why I said putting all "immigration" into a single category is that it conflates so many different things. The Brexit vote can only affect EU free movement immigration.

> So next time they had an opportunity to vote

Next time? What time period do you think this covers? People have been complaining about immigration since the Empire Windrush in 1948. The 'rivers of blood' speech was in 1968. This conversation about immigration has been happening my entire lifetime.

There's a handy graph widget here: http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc123/i... which any reasonable eyeballing suggests that immigration has been in the hundred-thousands for about two decades across three Labour governments and two Conservative ones.

> That's why I said putting all "immigration" into a single category

I was exxxxtremely specific in my last post about one very detailed type of immigration, and you are conflating "all types of immigration" AGAIN. You did systematically misunderstand and conflate everything that was misunderstandable in my speech, I don't know whether that's on purpose or not. That English people have been accepting or refusing immigration in the past is no question. The question is whether they want to add 1 million people in London in the next 10 years (it was the London plan before Brexit), and the English people didn't get to vote on that.

But you, and all the Remain camp together with you, make a full, complete denial that it is possible to discuss immigration quantities, although the visa bureaus exist in every country. And it's to break stubborn people like you that the People of England was required to break your toys, England, and Europe at the same time. Thank you for your stubbornness, here is the bill, please don't do the same in France and accept to discuss immigration quantities.

I agree with most of your comment except with this comparison:

> 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.

Before the recent migratory crisis free movement of people was not really a very hard pressing issue, even after the inclusion of the former eastern bloc countries.

It only took the currently seen proportion when, as response to the migratory pressure and the reticence of neighboring countries, Germany (unilaterally) signaled that they would accept and welcome the migrants without a clear vetting or logistic process in place.

A more apt analogy would be if NAFTA, originally an economic treaty, evolved into a free movement treaty between the participant countries and then, as the result of some kind of adverse conditions in South America, Canada declared that they were willing to accept the South America migrants that managed to reach their country.

There would be a big migratory pressure on the southern Mexican border (the actual border of that union) and unable to control or unwilling to deal with the problem on its own Mexico started to organize the flow of migrants from its southern border to its northern, passing the problem along to the next country, the United States.

In that hypothetical scenario the parties opposed to the original conversion of NAFTA from an economic treaty to a freedom of movement treaty would be bolstered by this unforeseen and unrelated event.

Two notes:

1) nowhere in this analogy I'm making any statement of opinion or passing any judgement about rhe situation depicted

2) comparing NAFTA to the EU is more apt than comparing US to the EU because the states that make the later have a much stronger and older sense of their own national identity than those of the former.

I'm not well-versed in EU politics but I find some parts of what you say surprising. After Brexit, there were reports of racist signs some idiots had put up. These weren't against syrian refugees, but rather against a particular former eastern bloc country.

There is undoubtedly an uptick of xenophobic reactions by some groups in England, even against Portuguese studying and working there (friends of mine even). There is and there will always be a segment of the population that will behave like that, blaming their problems on the "others".

But I don't believe it would ever reach the current proportions in all of the EU without the current migrant crisis and the lack of proper coordinated response.

There never was and never will be coherence in regards to this. Think of copycat crimes as a similar phenomena. Its basically a venting of poorly defined anger and frustration against anything "different".

"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."

The theory is that by including these countries in the Union their conditions eventually will improve (through EU funding and access to the single market) to a point that people won't have any reason to emigrate, basically removing the root cause of immigration.

It makes a lot of sense, but it is in the best of case a long and difficult process, and people facing loss of jobs and diminishing wealth will see solutions like "let's build a wall", or "let's get out of the EU" as appealing, it's human nature.

Maybe instead of going "all in, all the way" with the single market and free movement (that personally I have thoroughly enjoyed and consider it a huge net positive), the EU should have made the process more gradual.

> the EU should have made the process more gradual.

They did. "Eu Transitional" is a google-able phrase for more info. The UK originally overrode those limits as they needed workers badly at the time, the situation reversed with later countries where the UK maintained the limits and other countries abandoned them:

http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=466&

a huge influx of refugees was a risk they took knowingly, and that I feel it is only responsible to deal with.

Yes and since you mention responsibilities for destabilization, I would find it appropriate if the US felt some of it too. How many Syrian refugees have they accepted so far? 10k? It's pathetic, given that Europe is absorbing 100x or 200x the amount.

I'd suggest that the Nobel-peace-prize-winning US president should actually take some simple measures to help peace and accept more refugees into his country instead of shutting the borders.

Maybe Europe should close the floodgates themselves, rather than bitch about we who have been struck by the lightning bolt of sense.

"Floodgates" isn't really the appropriate terminology when you're talking about refugees escaping a war zone for their lives.

It is when I have people from Malawi and Nigeria wandering around outside my house.

Literally right now. People from Malawi are wandering around outside my house. All illegals of course. I have no idea why the police don't deport them but it must be a political decision by higher-ups. The ones I asked don't even lie about where they are from. They are very confident they won't be deported and I am curious about why that should be.

MENA countries have been troubled for many decades, often centuries. We can't take everybody merely because they are suffering. That would be like importing everybody from Boliva and Brazil because they have a lower standard of living than the USA. That is an extreme political stance to take.

You have the power to decide what goes on in your neighborhood. Organize with like minded neighbors and take control of the situation. The police will not always be there and they don't necessarily have your best interests at heart. It's your neighborhood, it's your family, it's your country, do not lie down and let an invader take from you. Your father and grandfather fought to make their part of the world so don't give it away. I am sure this will be down voted by those who would rather give up than fight for themselves but there will always be weak people.

It wouldn't be appropriate if every immigrant were a refugee. But, categorically, this is false:

“The number one reason why people leave Syria is not the bombs or the food or the cold, it’s because they want to find educational opportunities for their children,” Mr. Møller explains. “Every refugee is a migrant. Not every migrant is a refugee.” [ http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/15/un-director-admit... ]

"Six out of 10 migrants to Europe come for 'economic reasons' and are not refugees" - EU Vice President Frans Timmermans [ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/six-out-of-10... ]

"The diversity of asylum applications shows the migrant crisis is driven by more than just Syria’s collapse.... Only 21 per cent were from Syria." [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/11877088/N... ]

The vast majority of immigrants are simply looking to take advantage of European Union countries' superior infrastructure and aid/benefit programs.

"Vote against their own interests" is one of those terms that I can't stand hearing, because it assumes whoever says it knows what's best for everyone else.

But look at eg Cornwall, who voted to leave and then realised it would mean losing a bunch of EU funding.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-cornwa...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/26/cornwall-fea...

Or maybe, they want out of the EU, but retain the level of funding they get (which should result in lower costs for the UK government, which was a net payer to the EU)?!

The UK is only a net payer if you discount the benefits of being in the largest free trade area in the world.

What's the magic formula they came up with where every single member is receiving precisely the same cost/benefits, and no one is getting even the slightest free ride?

Free trade isn't a zero-sum game.

Indeed it isn't, but it's also no guarantee of success, especially not to a level that magically matches some arbitrary corresponding cost.

But Leave promised all of that money to the NHS. Were they lying when they did so?

http://imgur.com/indvx6a

The EU funding in Cornwall was largely wasted. It has been studied by auditors.

Most funding from most sources is largely wasted. That doesn't mean that the money won't be sorely missed.

OK, maybe they know better and that's a fair point. Except that the reason they voted was wrapped into propaganda level of lies and misrepresentations. The campaign on both side was so thin on facts and so big on lies that neither side really knew what they voted for.

Historically, the people that are in power now are the same guys with the same ideas and the same interests than the one that have been screwing them in the last 30 years. The vote is just giving them an immediate boost in power.

So they were mislead to follow the guy that has a consistent history of fucking them up. Maybe that's not technically directly voting against their own interests, but that does not look like the best decision one can take either.

edit: Note that you could probably say the same for the city workers. The UK has a consistent history of boosting its power. People working in the City, long term, are probably better off with neoliberal politic: they are on the winning side of the balance.

Your argument sounds clever but stands in direct contradiction with the data in the article.

You argue that voters were misled and made a huge mistake because they didn't know what they were voting for, due to lies and misinformation, and thus voted against their own interests (not "technically" but in spirit). This is a summary of your argument.

But the article cites polls showing that Leave voters were far more skeptical of politicians and far less likely to believe them than Remain voters: 81% distrust for Leave vs 67% for Remain.

So given that you say both campaigns lied a lot, that would imply that Leave voters were less misled by propaganda and MORE likely to know what it was they were doing. Yet that does not appear to be the conclusion you have reached. Why not?

> So given that you say both campaigns lied a lot, that would imply that Leave voters were less misled by propaganda and MORE likely to know what it was they were doing.

Believing that politician are lying to you does not make you informed, it makes you uninformed. For example, if you believe your GPS is not working, and you chose to follow its direction (or not), it does not mean you know the road, you are still picking at random. I conceded that it is the case of both sides.

As I explained, the reason I believe the Leave voters voted against their best interest is not based on the Brexit campaign, it is based on who they put in charge by doing it.

> Yet that does not appear to be the conclusion you have reached. Why not?

Don't get me wrong, as I alluded before, I'm in a position to actually benefit from the Brexit. I believe that the Leave voters are going to get the shit end of the deal.

I can believe they are informed as you suggest, or I can believe they were mislead. The difference is that I may vote against my interest for the later (eg: increase my taxes), but not for the former.

As final note: better NHS, better social security, more money, more job opportunities, vibrant country side full of activity, ... The fact that I don't believe it will happen does not mean I don't want it to happen. I don't mind being proven wrong, even if that means being ridiculed every 23rd of June, or looking stupid when my kid ask me why I was Remain.

>Ah, one of those comments.

Please don't be condescending and derisive in your argument if you politically disagree with them. I'm sick of seeing that, and it's almost always not productive in an ethical way.

Everyone has the right to be heard and share their opinion. If you are right, then you can win your argument on its merits, not on how you frame your opponent.

The other comment was condescending and name-calling - this one was just pointing that out.

So don't diminish your own argument by dropping to their level.

What is the condescending insult you're referring to by the way? Lefties?

I would say yes, given that it's such a simplistic framing of the situation - the impression given (whether intended or not) is ah, those liberals and socialists with their multicultural dreams! When will they wake up and see that it doesn't work! The response was fine

And the original post that referred to "neoliberalism" as the root of all our problems isn't being just as simplistic in their reasoning?

Neoliberalism is a phenomenon with quite well defined characteristics, so no.

'Lefties' used to dismiss another's point of view as invalid withiut actually explaining why is just baselessly tribal and antagonistic.

Oh, no doubt about that, it's distinctly unhelpful in any political conversation (unless the aim is to deliberately trying wind up the other person in the conversation)

Well, for the very reasons discussed here, that's debatable due mainly to it being turned into a snarl word, mainly by those on the left-hand side.

But yeah, definitely so re your second point, it is needlessly antagonising, and destroys measured political discussion (as it always has and always will)

> 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.

What makes you compare the EU to the US, and not say, the Americas?

> 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.

I'm going to put this as bluntly as possible so there is no chance of a miscommunication.

Europeans don't want blacks and arabs in their countries. Nobody cares about being called a racist anymore. They want the blacks and arabs out.

In England and France there is a real threat of civil unrest if it continues. People have had it with their children being bullied in schools and the constant stories, real and unreal, of rapes and murders.

You have to ask yourself what a typical young European thinks of Anders Brevik. The ones I know think he was right on the money. As you probably know he wrote a manifesto which is a sort of prognosis/prediction rant. Since he disseminated that and killed the children on the island he has become very popular on the radical European right, a sort of terrorist version of Nostradamus.

To spell it out: it means they won't primarily be attacking blacks and arabs, they'll be attacking leftists open borders supporters and their fellow travelers. They don't hate the blacks and arabs per se, not in comparison to the contempt they have for the portion of the left which they see as traitorous and treasonous.

Attacking people for being different is a side effect in comparison to the urge to destroy your real competitors, people like you but competing for the same resources.

I'm quite certain you'll find a lot of Europeans sharing those sentiments, but if you think you speak for overwhelming majority of of them, you are mistaken.

I used to be an open border supporter but then I changed my mind. The same thing is going to happen to a lot more people in the future. I'm liberal in comparison to most people I know. I feel like neither fish nor fowl because I can see the liberal and conservative positions, a bit like flipping back and forth between seeing a blue dress and a gold dress.

I respect David Cameron for allowing the referendum to go ahead and I respect the Austrians for allowing a recount of their votes after potential fraud was spotted.

Despite that I don't think good stewardship can prevent violence breaking out. Between social media and Islamic terror attacks there will be a reaction, probably starting in France.

Don't presume to speak for me.

> You have to ask yourself what a typical young European thinks of Anders Brevik. The ones I know think he was right on the money. As you probably know he wrote a manifesto which is a sort of prognosis/prediction rant. Since he disseminated that and killed the children on the island he has become very popular on the radical European right, a sort of terrorist version of Nostradamus.

> the contempt they have for the portion of the left which they see as traitorous and treasonous.

And the profound ignorance you have here of history would be funny if it wasn't so pathetically sad.

I'd recommend picking up a history book and educate yourself on what happens when far-right exremists start picking out groups of people among their own countrymen to label as 'enemies' or 'traitors'. It's a diversionary tactic meant advance an agenda of those seeking power that is almost certainly not in your interest or mine.

It was a tactic of the Nazis, of Stalin's Soviets, of the Khmer Rouge. Get a fucking grip.

I'm aware history is repeating itself ionised.

The question I want the answer to is why is the left pushing all the buttons that will produce conflict. This is not a rhetorical question, it is both a statement of fact and a real question.

Let us not pretend inviting millions of foreigners to Europe is some kind of ancient policy of the left wing. This is one of the largest mass migrations in our history. This is a new thing. The response of the right is often reactionary. Classically their forms of terror are also reactionary. Which brings me to the question:

So why is this happening?

I understand very well why people from other countries wish to improve their circumstances, nothing could be more human. Like I already said, the main vitriol of the right is against their countrymen of the left persuasion, not the refugees/migrants. This is something not entirely comprehended by the media despite the terrorism of Anders Brevik and that ignorance is itself highly problematic because it underestimates the danger of reaction.

To put it technically; xenophobia is a second order effect.

I am asking you to explain the first order effect, the cause of allowing ancient borders to be superseded. Why is this happening?

If my posts make you angry then I ask you to resist replying. If I present an opinion it is because I believe it to be so. Liberals often ask questions of authority e.g. the so-called truth to power. I am doing same thing to them and calling them to account for their actions. If this is too blasphemous or irksome we can just move onto other topics.

One of the points made recently was that it's not necessarily possible to prevent "foreigners taking your job" in a globalised world. Prevent immigration? The industry goes overseas anyway. Prevent imports? Doesn't result in locally-made artisan iPhones. You can see that in e.g. Brazil where there's a high import tax on electronics. It doesn't result in import substitution but just handicaps people trying to build businesses that use tech.

There is no option for "make the foreigners cease to exist" or "make them stop wanting to compete their way up to our standard of living".

"Distrust" in general in the UK and the US is probably fed mostly by the spectacular rise of media management and post-truth politics. Trust is a valuable public resource: a high-trust society can get a lot more done because people don't have to spend all their time securing themselves and their business deals, but can trust that genuine infractions will be dealt with and normal non-harmful activities left alone. It's always possible for anyone to do well in the short term by breaching trust, but if too many people do this it's like overfishing (another EU issue). Once lying becomes routine we end up stuck in the wrong side of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Many of the people most affected by immigration are service workers whose jobs cannot easily be outsourced.

It isn't just sale of public institutions. In many cases, it is attempts to maintain the status quo when circumstances have clearly changed. Public sector pensions are a perfect example of this. I think most software engineers don't realize how good public servants have it. In a time of very little safe asset growth, defined benefit pension plans are simply unsustainable without massive increases in contributions. Yet everywhere it seems that contributions are not going up and the people are employing various tricks to keep things going. In a fair market, the new reality would be accepted and pension plans would change. But here we are.

Btw ... in the book Fate of the State, the author suggests states to privatize their assets to meet their funding shortfalls. So the neoliberals will truly profit while things get worse. Sad.

It'll be interasting what's going to happen with state pensions when the burden is just too high. In the next 15 years one of these IL, NJ or HI will be at a breaking point. My bet is on IL since the approx date of falling off the cliff is 2028.

According to the book (the author did do some financial analysis but I forget the details), if these states sell a small fraction of their assets, they will be able to pay off all their debt. I'm definitely not agreeing with the author's point of view, but that is something I had not thought about before. i.e. while your debt may be a lot higher than your income, if you have sizable assets, you an get away with it for a while.

>I think most software engineers don't realize how good public servants have it.

Maybe we should work towards all having it as good as the public servants do.

I'm not trying to foment, but I see this meme all the time: if some other sector of society has it better, then they must be brought down to our level because 'austerity' or something.

Meanwhile I don't see CEO pay being lowered due to austerity or banks making any less profit...

You are correct in principal ... we should all have it better. However, now that I'm a bit older, I ask questions about productivity and such. If we are earning more than we are actually producing, someone is paying the bills. It is either someone else (which is not fair), or coming from the pockets of our children (incredibly not fair). I think the previous generation screwed us badly. It is our responsibility to not pass it on. But you are definitely right about issues like CEO pay being unfair and beyond any true productivity.

I see that too. What seems to be happening is that old public sector union employees are given comparable wages to what they got before the crunch.

Then the younger generation of police officers and nurses are receiving almost nothing. They are literally on min wage. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be a police for nine euros an hour.

If I were to make a broad connection between the lack of trust in government, I would attribute it to the aging of the democratic institution. In the last 15 years, scandals around voting have been huge in many elections, and the advance of technology is making how the politicians run look antiquated and unrepresentative.

I think this is more of a general response against governments who don't have the capacity to fullfill their promises,which is something that the spread of technology has made more evident.

'Neoliberalism' or libertarianism has definitely put the state under the scope and has made the bar higher: governments around the world failing to address the issue of income/wealth inequality is a case for a smaller state, not a bigger one.

Being from Argentina, believe me I understand how Neoliberalism was used as an excuse for politicians to profit from selling state assets, but then how the solution to a corrupt institution be give that institution more power? Much like the 2008 crises which was pinned on lack of regulation of banks: almost 10 years passed and no banker went to jail, and the rules are the same. Milton friedman would have said to let the banks fail, but the governments didn't, and that expectation is one of the causes cited for banks taking such large risks.

I have hopes for a future decentralized government, one where few dont hold the power of the many, and decisions are done more organically and interests can be better represented. The advent of technology is making that easier to achieve year by year.

> Milton friedman would have said to let the banks fail, but the governments didn't, and that expectation is one of the causes cited for banks taking such large risks.

This can't be repeated enough. The banks should have bit the dust. A great many pensioners and households would have suffered, but then the government could have introduced emergency bankruptcy laws and ameliorated the worst of it. The crash would have provided its own antidote.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/bankruptcy-...

In my country every person I ever talked to was against the bank bailouts. Democracy didn't happen here and neither did capitalism. That's the inconvenient reality for the left and right. Their old enemies aren't to blame. What we have is a failure of governance, not ideology.

The European Union officials were right behind the government in this. We actually have phone recordings of corrupt bankers describing manipulating idiot government officials.

http://www.thejournal.ie/the-anglo-tapes-9-jaw-dropping-quot...

Then later the EU forced the debt down our throats. With friends like this...

I'd like to know what the leftist solution is to that. We can't replace unelected officials. Because they seem to just go back to their hobby horse of blaming the capitalism ideology for this.

One capitalist solution would be to get rid of central bank controlled interest rates. The governance problem remains unsolved though and all this could basically happen again.

> A great many pensioners and households would have suffered, but then the government could have introduced emergency bankruptcy laws and ameliorated the worst of it.

Exactly, bail out the people, not the corrupt institutions.

I'd prefer power in the hands of the few. The selection of the few needs fine tuning and fixing though.

The cumulative intelligence and decision making capability of the herd is great at wasting everyone's time and the worlds resources. Thanks to visionary lizard person Mark Zuckerberg, we are all connected now whether we like it or not. And the stampeding brainless herd is going to be dragging each one of us in directions we have no control over.

As long as China doesn't implode, they have an opportunity here to show the world a way out. If they do implode we have to just wait around for a better, more effective centralized system to evolve.

Its impossible for a few to represent the interest of many. So the simpler the choice, the less representative it is. It should be more important to give power to the person running your city than your country, because his policies are way more likely to make an impact in your daily life. Making a oversimplifying comparison, centralization is usually against the robustness and efficiency of a system, since it adds a central point of failure. In practice, for me, it add so many layers of abstraction that the ones at the top make decisions on things very different than what the ones at the bottom care about.

Centralization was practical before, but now with technology we have an increased capacity of descentralization.

This coincides with a podcast interview I listened to with a renowned CPA. He said that the existing tax code in the U.S. is set almost entirely to incentivize growth, entrepreneurship, and investment. So, the tax code is full of all kinds of breaks for employers, job creators, investors, owners of assets, etc. The tax rate on most long-term capital gains is significantly less than income tax. Salaried individuals be damned. When Warren Buffett claims, as he has in the past, that he pays a lower tax rate than most of his employees, he's not exaggerating.

This tax strategy aggressively pursued during the Reagan administration, supported during the Clinton administration, and maintained during the Bush and Obama administrations relies on the assumption that growth among the asset-holders translates into more jobs and better pay for everyone ("trickle-down economics"). This assumption seems asinine now because of course the wealthy are going to save whatever profit they make. That's how the wealthy get wealthy in the first place! The Great Recession has only exposed this more. Employers realized "Actually, I didn't need those positions anyway." Other employers realized "There's enough demand for jobs here, so I don't actually have to increase salary that much." Property values may have collapsed during the Great Recession but a lot of long-term property owners realized "People still need a roof over their heads. Demand for rent is at an all-time high. I have no incentive to lower rent."

Consequently, wealth inequality grows. Wages stagnate. Homeownership stagnates. Rent rises with inflation. The percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds living at home with their parents is the highest it's been in nearly a century. The young and educated see the situation, realize that they have no power over an establishment bending to the whims of the upper-class and corporations, and grow more and more apathetic. The old and uneducated are fed populist nonsense and anti-immigration scapegoating, thinking that driving out the brown people will get them the jobs and pay that employers have no interest in giving them. Trust is an emotion. A belief. What makes you less likely to trust others? Insecurity. And why wouldn't people be insecure in this economic environment?

(I realize that this is a very U.S.-centric comment and I apologize to any other nationalities for whom this does not describe the political environment.)

But we do want growth. Would you prefer the opposite – stagnation? How's that working out for Europe? "Trickle-down economics" was never an actual concept. It was a silly characterization of policies that favored keeping corporate taxes low in the name of encouraging capital investment and it's been responsible for the strength of our economy over the past 40 years.

Everyone loves to rail against wealth inequality (talk about populism...) but nobody ever explains why wealth inequality is so bad. So the 1% has a large concentration of the wealth. If we took all their money and distributed it evenly among all citizens it would barely move the needle in terms of living standards. Someone having 1000 times more money than you doesn't really affect you. In fact, that money is likely floating around the economic system anyways in the form of investments.

Asking that the government liberate that money – which in terms of total tax revenue is a rounding error – does not seem like a good policy given how incompetent the government has proven itself to be when spending the money it already collects. I'd rather there be a few fat-cats sitting on yachts doing nothing (which is better than bombing brown people or spying on me) and have a Bill Gates and Elan Musk actually tackling important problems than have no fat-cats at all and a slightly larger government making all the same mistakes they make today with no visionary capitalists to speak of. Call me crazy.

>Asking that the government liberate that money [...] does not seem like a good policy given how incompetent the government has proven itself to be when spending the money it already collects.

So don't ask the government to liberate the existing holdings of the 1%, ask them to change policy to cutoff the supply.

The tax code is so overwhelmingly in favour of the investing class that, if it were re-balanced, you wouldn't have to take anyone's money to achieve a similar outcome in a decade.

> The tax code is so overwhelmingly in favour of the investing class that, if it were re-balanced, you wouldn't have to take anyone's money to achieve a similar outcome in a decade.

Except this 1% are exactly the sort that have the resources to just leave Canada if it ceases to be financially favourable. It's unfortunately not so cut and dry.

They're a lot more willing to threaten to do this, and also invite politicians to fancy dining / holiday homes / helicopter rides, then they have historically proven to be willing to actually do this.

Overwhelmingly in favor of the investing class? How on earth are you reaching that conclusion? The bottom 45% pay no federal income tax whatsoever. In fact, the top 1% pay 25% of all taxes in the US. I wouldn't call that "overwhelmingly in favor. You can certainly argue that they should be taxed more but let's not pretend they're not already footing a disproportionate portion of our tax obligations.

The conclusion is reached by distinguishing between earned and unearned income. Unearned income is essentially investment income, and there is no FICA tax on that income, and it's taxed based on your earned income tax bracket, which could end up making it 0% and thus not taxed at all if you have no earned income. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/2015-capital-gains...

Further, while it is true that "federal income tax" does not include FICA, FICA is a tax on income and the poorest sod pays FICA tax from the very first dollar of income. So it's kinda misleading to say the bottom 45% won't pay any income (related) tax whatsoever.

You can have a case where those 45% are paying 7.65% of their pittance of income on FICA, with no additional income related tax, where someone wealthy enough who has no earned income is paying 0% federal income tax or capital gains tax or FICA on their unearned investment income. And that's just a small example.

It's unearned income. In other words: no income. They will get taxes the full 15% rate when they sell the asset so what does it matter if it's 0% in the year they don't sell it other than to sell a narrative? I'm sorry if somebody's assets appreciate over time but to call that income is just dishonest.

I hate how people constantly move the goalposts when it come to claiming that a certain minority of people aren't "paying their fair share". You know who else doesn't pay taxes on unearned income? The 99%. That's about as fair as it can get.

FICA goes to benefits that overwhelmingly favor the poor compared to the rich, so I don't find that argument compelling either.

Your original claim was that the tax code heavily favored the 1% but so far all you've managed to back that up with is a tax rate on their unearned income being the exact same as it is for the 99%'s unearned income. Hardly convincing.

>It's unearned income. In other words: no income. No that's wrong, it is income. Examples of unearned income are dividends and interest, and capital gains. These are taxed at a lower income tax rate than earned income, i.e. income from a salaried job. And unearned income is not subject to FICA tax.

You have to make enough money for starters in order to have income sources that are unearned, so yes this is favored at people who make money. The very wealthy, the 1%, aren't making this money from earned income, they make it from unearned income.

> Someone having 1000 times more money than you doesn't really affect you.

This is observably not true. Prices increase for everyone when average incomes (demand) go up. So if people around me suddenly start making more and I don't, suddenly, I'm paying more for things, and am worse off. If you want a concrete example look at Bay Area housing prices.

Yet a rich person can only occupy one house at a time. Maybe they could own a couple different houses in different locations but even then they have to pay people to maintain them throughout the year. I don't think the 1% are having any effect on your rent bills in SF. The 10%, maybe, and outside investors from China, and a broken local government for sure.. but not the 1%.

And besides, you're not addressing my point. You're trying to explain supply and demand for some reason and ignoring the fact that I said "1000 times more money" which means the ultra rich, which is the group that progressives like to scapegoat.

Explain to me how anyone from the 1% "observably" negatively affects your daily life in significant way.

I am skeptical about the roofs over people's head argument. This is being used by buyers to rationalize mind boggling home values in Toronto and Vancouver. If the jobs keep being crappy, young people will just move away to better economic environments. Canada is constantly losing a lot of its top talent to the US because of this.

I think the true cause of the unaffordable housing is the insanely low interest rates. The people at the helm are attempting growth at all costs.

Edit: it is really interesting to contrast Toronto with SF. Both are really nice places to live without cost of living concerns. Both have insane home prices. Rents are relatively cheap in Toronto because of basic demand and supply. SF has great paying jobs, Toronto does not. Will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next decade in both cities.

Lack of construction is certainly a problem in Toronto, which has a default 10 meter height limit for new residential construction. All new buildings taller than a house require municipal buy-in.

Between 2001 and 2011, the number dwellings in Toronto increased 11%, while areas 30km from the downtown core grew about 35%. You can clearly see the effects of the 10m restriction on urban sprawl at p. 11 of the city's census backgrounder:

http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_fi...

Detached homes and town-homes use twice as much energy as apartments, and people commuting 30km to the city generally drive. There has been an uptick in apartment construction recently, but these units are generally too small for families because developers find it more profitable to sell mini-suites to young bachelors.

Limiting high rise sounds like a good thing. Especially in places reasonably far from the equator. It's nice being able to get sunlight at the street level!

I don't think very tall buildings are the answer. More and better communal services and smaller more efficient properties. I think that would go a fair way.

This is NIMBYism at its finest. Those who immigrated to Toronto first own prime real estate near commercial centres. New working families have to move out and commute long distances so that retired folk living in Toronto houses can enjoy their land appreciation and sunshine.

It happens everywhere it seems, even in small resort towns, their success does not apply to everyone. If you have money, you can buy in. If you don't, you live in the next town, and pay for your own bus to get to work.

Back in the day, America, and even in Britain, housed their servant class.

Today, sure the servant class is "free" to the degree they're not literally called servants, but I think we're doing things worse when it comes to housing. This servant class is priced out of the employer's neighborhood market to be sure, but often all surrounding neighborhoods, and increasingly even the town, that their employer resides in. They're effectively exported at the end of their service day, and imported when needed again the next. I think it's disgusting.

There are ways to make it better. For example, when driving through Manhattan, you feel like you're in a canyon. In downtown Chicago, you don't get that same feeling because they have rules that buildings have to be so many feet from the street, and after a certain height must be set in even more. It's a real noticeable difference from cities that don't have such regulations, and it really makes the city feel much more sunny, friendly, and alive. I often felt like a troll walking through Manhattan.

Rich people have lower savings rates than the middle class.

You think billionaires just buy treasuries or CDs and wait for their wealth to evaporate through inflation? That money is invested, including into the VC funds that make the SV startup lifestyle possible.

Investments are savings; just riskier.

(Did you think that your savings account at the bank is just held as treasuries? The bank invests it.)

>Did you think that your savings account at the bank is just held as treasuries? The bank invests it.

It's actually a bit more complicated than that:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

> make the SV startup lifestyle possible.

You say that as though it's a good thing

Well they quite literally 'created' my job and many others' so I'm pretty happy with it.

The parent is not talking about "savings" in the sense of savings accounts, but in terms of the macroeconomic sense of the word where savings denotes anything you do with money that is not immediate consumption (and therefore savings=investments).

During the Great Depression, every newspaper called it a "Recession". it wasn't called a Depression until it was over.

Seems history is repeating itself, judging from the wording of your post.

There is a problem with this word: Neoliberalism.

First; It is mostly found in the pages of the Guardian and similar left wing publications. Right wing people almost never use it. This makes communication more difficult rather than easier.

Second; The definitions of this word vary greatly. In just the same way 'Communism' is used by the right wing as a word to describe everything from the Soviet to any manifestation of central government, the word 'Neoliberalism' has a range of meanings that encompass all possible forms of capitalism depending on who you talk to. Again, this makes communication harder.

Maybe you should stop using this word. I think it just makes an already difficult topic impossible to discuss.

A cynical definition:

Elites = rich people I don't like

Neoliberalism = rich people I don't like making money in a way I don't like

It we still had true capitalism somewhere I would be surprised. With the dearth of regulation and coercive behavior of politicians many governments border on fascism. The factor many forget is that politicians and those invested in keeping them in office are adept at making you blame the opposite of what is truly at fault.

No, what has really sunk public opinion of government is that the internet has let anyone expose all the skeletons in the closet. Just how invasive and controlling governments have become and worse how far they want to go.

Don't blame a political style, congratulate freedom of information and that is a very good thing

Neoliberalism is also allowing authoritarian states to export authoritarianism via cheap near slave labor.

But isn't thr closer you get to pure capitalism, the closer you got to neoliberalism? Are public institutions and utilities supposed to exist within a purely capitalistic model?

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 populist shift in progress.

The French, the Italians, the Russians and even the Dutch have had a substantial trust issue with their governments as long as I've been alive, I don't know enough about the local politics of a lot of the other countries listed there but I suspect that given the fact that none of the ones that I am familiar with would warrant the label 'collapse' that it is not as alarmist as the title would have you believe.

What is happening is that there is a slow but steady push towards more nationalist representation in the various parliaments and this is a source for concern.

And this is all not to say that a Trump presidency and an exit of the UK from the EU can't/won't do plenty of damage, but with some luck they will cause some real political reform in those two countries.

It's either that or a very good chance of serious economic upheaval.

    > 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).

Out of EU immigration (intra -EU too, but it is a bit subdued) is of great concern to great many people. Since the AfD is the only German party willing to listen about said concerns - you can safely assume they will become more popular.

That's not even true.

Not a single German party has been pro out-EU immigration. Not a single one.

In fact, the current government even made it harder for asylum seekers to stay, or bring their family, and expects to deport the majority of them in less than 3 years.

Please read the official parliamentary protocols, and not the very wrong spin the media put on it.

The thing is only AfD is anti. The other tip toe around the topic from the fear of being labeled racist/phobic.

And if no one is pro out of EU migration - why did you let 1000000+ in last two years?

> why did you let 1'000'000+ in last two years?

Simple, because over two thirds of those were already sitting in refugee camps in Greece by mid-2015.

Greece asked Germany to pay for the camps.

Merkel decided that paying for camps in Germany would be cheaper than for paying for camps in Greece, and that here maybe a third could actually get integrated, further lowering costs. And the effort to deport them might get easier.

So she said her famous sentence "we won't send anyone who already is in the EU and tries to go to Germany to get asylum back to the EU country they were in before".

Last time we took in a large portion of out-EU immigrants we didn't send ~2 million of them back (even though there were plans to do so), many of which I wouldn't remotely consider "German" even in the third generation (yes, I'm talking Turkish guest workers here). I don't see why this would be different this time around, especially considering many have nothing to go back to. From this we also have gotten a clear indication that large-scale assimilation isn't working (in this timespan) -- as you'd expect, because who wants to let go of his culture for no reason (there are native people living here!?).

Technically there's a distinction between an accepted asylum seeker and a citizen proper, but at the end of the day they're going to get a regular permission to settle (Niederlassungserlaubnis, like a normal immigrant) and from there it's not far to citizenship at which point there's no legal way to send them back (because it would involve revoking citizenship). But even permissions to settle aren't routinely revoked, so the ruling parties accept that the asylum program is effectively turned into an immigration one. Merkel, too, has accepted that and is pushing the "integration" angle. A smart move considering the refugees of today can be the voters of tomorrow (~10-20 years). Her party backed off a bit when right-wing movements gained steam, but nothing essential has changed since. The next federal parliament elections will be interesting ones, a big motion of confidence...

> Last time we took in a large portion of out-EU immigrants we didn't send ~2 million of them back

That's wrong.

The last time we took in a large portion of out-EU immigrants was the balkan wars, and we sent all of them back in the late 90s/early 2000s.

In Sweden as well. It seems nationalism is on the rise pretty much everywhere, just as it was a hundred yrs ago which lead to WWI (and later WWII).

But in contrast to 100 years ago, nationalism now seems to be a reaction to an external threat (non-EU immigrants), as opposed to intra-European tensions.

I've been surprised at how often resentment of the Germans seems a driving force of Brexit voters.

WW1 and WW2 were both caused by the desire of some people to engage in empire building.

Empire building is not the same thing as "nationalism" by any stretch.

Italy has a left-wing anti-establishment party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Star_Movement

Actually right wingers say that the 5 stars are left wing and left wingers say they are right wing. Five Star is made of disgrunted citizens and those citizens used to vote left and right so you can see anything in it. Maybe it's time to go past concepts like left and right.

Poll among the electors of the 5 Star one year ago http://www.polisblog.it/post/354975/sondaggi-politici-chi-so...

33% said to be left winger

21% rigth winger

11% center

35% none of the above

The French Front National has seen a pretty dramatic increase in votership over the last years as well.

> there definitely is a populist shift in progress

Is it that difficult to believe that a large part of the population is not interested in multiculturalism, unrestrained immigration, Islam, etc? I think until this concept cannot be fathomed and taken seriously you will see a continued shift towards so called "populist" thinking. There _must_ be a shift towards a more moderate politics. It is too far to the left and it's too liberal for the vast majority of people in those countries. You can argue against this ad nauseum, however at the the end of the day it's a democracy and the majority will steer the direction they want their politics to go. The current liberal parties need to wake up and realise they're pushing a form of politics that is out of touch with the masses. And every time people say Trump supports are "stupid" and "racist" and "backwards" you are just going to make them push even harder, because you refuse to acknowledge their very real grievances.

"multiculturalism, unrestrained immigration, Islam"

What do those three things actually mean though? And what would it mean to end them?

Immigration is only unrestrained within the EU; EU free movement doesn't apply to either refugees from Syria or non-EU immigrants.

What does it mean to end multiculturalism? Formal ban on the teaching of minority languages, as in the bad old days when the UK tried to stamp out Gaelic and Welsh?

What does it mean to end Islam? An end to freedom of religion? Making muslims wear large yellow crescents so they can be easily identified? Remember the Bataclan attackers weren't immigrants, they were French or Belgian nationals.

> multiculturalism

Typically, this means the various campaigns that push political correctness related to race and culture. While the intentions might be virtuous, what usually ends up happening is people on the right become skeptical about "newspeak" and people on the left accuse the right of being "racist" (a small minority actually are). The divide gets wider. I hope that you're not being deliberately obtuse to try to prove your point. Use your imagination and try to think if there's anything about the push for multiculturalism and how it's being done that could be problematic.

> unrestrained immigration

Germany has unrestrained immigration. They've taken in something like 600k Syrian refugees while Turkey has taken in over 2M. Here in the US we have an unprotected border that illegal immigrants cross in order to live and work here and the left is trying to push policies that would slowly give them amnesty. Your interpretation of "unrestrained immigration" seems to be deliberately avoiding the hot-button topics.

> Islam

I very much doubt that the GP is talking about "ending Islam", but it sure makes it easier to argue against their post to interpret it that way, doesn't it? If people on the left can't understand the desire to have a bit more skepticism about Islam in light of the recent raft of ISIS and ISIS inspired terrorist attacks then I'm not sure civil discussion about the issue can actually be had. It's unfortunate, because I definitely sympathize with the position that says we should be tolerant of other cultures. But if that tolerance comes at the expense of security and requires labeling conservatives "racist" for having skepticism all that's going to do is result in more populist candidates and a further swing against progressive ideals.

> Use your imagination and try to think if there's anything about the push for multiculturalism and how it's being done that could be problematic.

You're asking me to make a strawman and argue against it. I'm asking people to explain their position and be specific about what they're against and what they want done about it.

> Germany has unrestrained immigration.

No they don't. They even have a handy website in English to explain what rules apply: http://www.bamf.de/EN/Migration/migration-node.html ; if you, as (I guess?) a US national landed in Germany and decided to stay and work, you'd find out fairly quickly that it's not unrestricted.

What they have done is fulfil their obligations under the Hague convention on refugees. This does not automatically grant the refugees indefinite leave to remain or German nationality.

> skepticism about Islam

What does this actually mean in practice, though? Does it mean allowing or encouraging officials to ask people their religion and discriminate against them on that basis?

The UK labour party is currently having a fight over the mirror image of this question, which involves distinguishing between the state of Israel, "Zionism", and people of Jewish ethnicity and religion. The distinctions are easily lost in careless rhetoric but very important.

> Immigration is only unrestrained within the EU; EU free movement doesn't apply to either refugees from Syria or non-EU immigrants.

I think people are definitely frustrated with how the refugee crisis was dealt. There is a perception -- whether true or not -- that Merkel opened the floodgates for unfettered extra-EU immigration. You are right in that there seems to be no serious solutions to these perceived problems, just a build-up of anger.

> Islam

Muslims killing people because it is Haram to draw cartoon pictures of their imaginary sky god. Muslims sexually harassing woman in Cologne on New Years. Muslims "call to prayer" blaring over load speakers in non-Islamic countries but in their own Muslim created "suburbs". Muslims wanting public swimming pools gender-segregated.

If the only way to break the ebb of this tide is through conservative/right-leaning/populist politics then this is exactly what will happen, if the majority so wills it.

The actual point is that these are real or perceived to be real grievances that the current political elite are _refusing to entertain as legitimate concerns_. They're not even asking for a "definition". They are flat-out dismissing it as bigotry, racism, "a small minority of disgruntled people", etc. So people have turned to e.g. Trump, who openly talks about this and offers plain and simple plans that address these issues: Build a big wall, deport millions of illegals, etc. You can disagree, but it's a simple solution that people understand.

Aren't all those things already illegal? It is really hard to find people on either side of the political spectrum that wouldn't agree that those things should remain illegal and be enforced.

So most people don't have a problem with that, but they do have a problem with labeling an entire culture, race, or religion is immortal/illegal. That's literally the definition of racism and we should be better than that. Yet it seems like some people are in a real hurry to turn back the clock on that.

These illegal events come downstream of the policy of what tends to be liberal government: multicultural immigration done hastily, and without the necessary frameworks in place to support it. Regardless of whether these were ill-considered side-effects or whether the consequences came on purpose, they're that government's mistake and their responsibility.

If you're talking to your friends, and none of you are directly involved in political office, then I don't think you're getting the opinion from the people who matter. I would beware apologists, though.

I think it is the throughput or volume of importing that is most foolish about this effort, not even the intention. In Canada, there exists at least one public school that has to educate 19-22 year old Syrians who don't speak a lick of English in the midst of 15-16 year olds: same classes, same resources. It turns out that these uneducated adults are giving the administration a tough time and I fear for the sexual safety of those children.

Is it too far left? Current polling leads me to believe that the people are beginning to lean more left themselves. Trump isn't exactly winning.

Their greivences are real; mine are similar, but I don't believe that the policies and reactions that are trumpeted are going to fix their grievances.

Consider immigration as a concern. Why? Competition for jobs, crime and an exploding population of unskilled workers. Education programs (creating skilled Americans, reducing immigrant birth-rate and crime) and stabilizing Mexico are probably the most beneficial long term solutions, but I hear no discussion around this.

Populism is up essentially all over Europe.

Timbro (neoliberal think-tank) Authoritarian Populism Index 2016 http://timbro.se/sites/timbro.se/files/files/reports/4_rappo... (pdf)

Stuff going on with the Australian federal election last weekend (2016-07-02) is pretty interesting, too. [0] [1] We’re still not sure who is going to be running the country yet.

Almost a quarter of the votes went to minor parties and independents, which is the highest on record I believe. Derryn Hinch (aka “the human headline”) is now a senator, along with Pauline Hanson, who I imagine campaigned on building a wall along the Australian/Mexican border.

Most people are interpreting it as an indication that we’re sick of all the narcissistic bullshit from the two major parties. Of course they don’t see it that way.

[0] For the uninitiated, Australia has compulsory voting, and a two-party preferred system, so the lion share of voters usually vote for either Labor or the Coalition (Liberal), with a smattering to minor parties and independents.

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-03/election-results-histo...

In South Australia, NXT received 21% of the vote with a party tagline of "Sick of toxic politics? Give NXT a go!" The founder has had a fairly strong profile in SA politics for almost 20 years, but got virtually nothing in terms of interstate votes.

with some luck they will cause some real political reform in those two countries.

Currently it looks like the most likely outcome is an independent Scotland trying to remain in the EU (with a vaguely social-democrat politics) and a chaotic / far-right England. Northern Ireland is waiting to see what will happen; the peace process there was dependent on the EU and there are some possible disastrous outcomes that nobody in charge has bothered to rule out yet (border closure with Ireland, end of Human Rights Act).

Maybe Labour will implode and leave UKIP with ~60 seats in the north of England.

In some ways this Brexit is a victory for the longest newspaper campaign in history. It wouldn't have been possible without the Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph posting anti-EU and anti-migrant stories for decades.

And yet the Independent, the Guardian, the FT, the Economist etc have all been posting nothing but pro-EU articles for weeks now. The Indy seems to have gone into complete meltdown. So you think these don't balance out, huh.

It's like global warming: the two sides aren't symmetrical, and trying to balance between inaccurate and accurate articles does not bring the reader closer to the truth.

(The Telegraph have James Delingpole as their anti-wind-farm global warming denialist column)

The book It's Even Worse Than It Looks is a great resource for understanding this phenomenon in the United States. The authors are longtime congressional staffers who are horrified at the institution's decline.

They argue that the US Congress really isn't working well, degrading the performance of the entire US government, and the primary cause of this dysfunction is a deliberate campaign by the Republican party, starting with Newt Gingrich in the mid 1990s.

I remember learning about the Contract With America is school, but I had no idea it was so insidious. The GOP intentionally broke congress to get people angry about crappy government, under the theory that they, as the party of small government, they would make relative gains.

This has now baked for 20 years, and has been pretty effective. This is why you see Republicans stonewalling things they should logically support, like nominees they explicitly praise as qualified, Obamacare's extensive market mechanics, etc. It's also why Congress can't pass laws even when thr majority of the population supports them, and real crises like the Debt Ceiling debacle.

Institutions are critically important. We have to fix this before we can fix anything else.

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

And has it been positive in practice so far?

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/Guardian/Pix/pict...

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...

If I understand correctly, there was a significant gap between the turnout rate for the young people and the turnout rate for the elderly.

https://next.ft.com/content/2994afe4-43b0-3763-a80c-92351473...

So? Are young people inherently more valuable or more correct?

no, but are underrepresented because the mistrust trend seems to hit them harder and in a bad way.

also, while I'd argue older people have more world experience, they are also disconnected from society advancements (which is a struggle as old as dirt) and I'd say a healthy society needs not just voting to act as an average between the groups but a dialogue where input from both sides are taken for advancement.

to be honest I'm in the apathy group myself, not because I mistrust politician but because I mistrust a system that promotes a dichotomy between winners and losers on interest groups instead of leveraging both sides needs and wants synergically

No, but they have a lot more riding on the future of their country than pensioners do.

All I see is more draconian measures put in place to keep the status quo (i.e. keeping the rich rich). Nothing positive in that.

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).

But humans mostly want to be part of some group, and that's the problem with the current trend of ultra-individualism: people will be much easier to influence by dangerous groups that fill their need for belonging. If there were a stronger sense of community in the first place, instead of the strong emphasis on the autonomous, self-sufficient and competing individual, one could wonder if radical religious or ultranationist groups would be as significant.

I agree with the hierarchy generally followed by emergency management systems - protect yourself first and your family, then your neighborhood, then if they are all safe help the wider community.

Like there was plenty of "political innovation", especially in Europe, after the Great Depression in the 1930s? I'd argue that didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time its different.

You can hope, but does Trump and brexit look different? And if so, does it look better?

I think that was the point of the original article - the mistrust of "authority" following the financial crisis is leading to irrational behaviour such as blind faith in charismatic leaders (who are typically reactionary rather than progressive). Based on historical precedents (e.g. the swing to political extremes following the Great Depression) I don't think this is "positive trend" for a brighter better future, but I hope I'm wrong.

Yes, very.

Brexit was a decision about a policy, Trump is a decision about a man. The key personalities of Brexit are now all gone. What remains is the policy.

Hm, Brexit seems to me a decision taken for emotive reasons promoted by some larger-than-life personalities.

Yes, they're all gone, which is very strange indeed - most victories have no shortage of fathers. (1) Instead they're all running for cover.

So no, very.

1) http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnfkenn110295.h...

I can assure you the vast majority of UK voters didn't give a crap about the personalities involved, nor were the decisions taken for "emotive reasons" (sure are lots of people in denial trying to claim that though).

It's a funny sort on non-emotive decision that causes a massive rise in racist violence.

"Massive"? You mean a handful of cases?

> you mean a handful of cases

Not as such, no

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brexit-hate-crime...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/11/police-blame...

http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/08/brexit-racism-more-than-3000-h...

Brexit should have been a decision about policy, but appears not to have been - that is one of the points of the article.

The EU appears to have been too complex a subject for many voters to fully understand, and there was allegedly widespread distrust of the "experts", leading to large numbers basing their decision on emotional responses instead, such as "I don't trust the experts so I'm going to do the opposite of what they recommend" and "I like this bloke who talks about listening to the 'little people' and 'taking back control'".

I know there are some people who voted Leave for well-thought-out reasons, and that I can respect, because it is rational. But most analysis suggests the majority who voted Leave did not do so for rational reasons. In which case it is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And it is not as though this was a local or a general election - this has made England and Wales look very bad on the world stage, and is something we're all going to have to live with for a very long time.

I don't think there was ever much trust in (western) governments. People only put up with the politicians' crap, because they were well off. Bread and circuses is now over in many places, at least compared to the recent past, and people are facing the reality of the political fuckups of he last few decades.

But the graph in the article shows otherwise.

Why should people trust any government in the first place?

Governments nowadays came to replace institutions of organized religions as the way to gain a high social status and security, and hence became as bloated, inefficient and corrupted as old, unreformed churches of the past.

No sane people would 'trust' such social formations which sole purpose is self preservation and parasitic growth.

I think you need to look at "Churches of the past" a little harder. Churches had their time and while we haven't managed to get rid of them yet, we are a lot better of with a separation between them and the state.

But we replaced it with the Church Of Capitalism, which has its own sets of dogma. Maybe we need a separation of finance and state?

The idea of "service to common men" goes back to antiquity. Mahayana Buddhists modeled their bodhisattvas after Brahmana priests in order to justify why peasants must pay taxes to monasteries, or why a monastery owns all the land. Catholic Church is famous for its middleman's role between men and god, where one could buy release from one's own sins. Actually, all organised religions degrade to this or that form of bargain with help of authorized servants of the common folk.

Governments just have reused this thousands years old meme that they are necessary public servants, that without them whole world would collapse the very next day they stopped performing their rituals.

We are not even speaking here about primitive authoritarian governments which have nothing but self-preservation and continuous increase of power and wealth in their agenda.

I don't think parent is suggesting we should replace the state with religious institutions. He refers to those past institutions as "bloated, inefficient and corrupted".

His point, I believe, is that governments are largely selfish institutions and this is important to understand the decline in public trust. If the main interest of the government is self preservation - by any means necessary - their actions do not necessarily reflect public interest.

Governments only have to care about the public enough to prevent revolts and, in the case of democracies, to secure a reelection. Thanks to modern advertising, they don't even have to do that much - they often get away with just pretending. It is natural that, over time, trust in government will erode.

What about outside the US, where there is no seperation of Church and State?

The church and state are better separated in many places outside the US. I'm in New Zealand.

I think governments are still more trustworthy than businesses, though.

At least with governments you get to pretend that you elect people into office who have your interests at heart.

It seems that a government service originally was within that "natural" framework of division of labor (which exists even for non-human species). Defense and law enforcement and other necessary specializations are obvious examples. Cells has specializations which makes higher life forms possible.

But as long as government employees start to form its own cast or a social class with higher social status than mere soldier, policeman, teacher or a civil servant the whole thing is being transformed into an ugly social hierarchy of corruption, greed and self-preservation, which is so common in the history of all nations and cultures.

Oh, I'm not arguing governments are inherently and permanently trustworthy. I certainly wouldn't trust any government in existence right now.

However in principle a government is tasked with overseeing the protection and prosperity of a group of people (its subjects) whereas a company is tasked with protecting the interests of its owners (e.g. investors).

A company merely operates on its customers (or its users in the case of companies like Facebook where the users are the product, not customers). A government operates for its subjects.

At least that's the general idea if you follow Thomas Hobbes, John Locke or Rousseau. I'm certain there are quite a number of governments around which disagree with this definition.

Neither are trustworthy and neither should be trusted implicitly. But to pretend that people can't have any effect on businesses like they can on government is just silly. Businesses can't tax the population. They rely on consumers buying their products and services, and if that doesn't happen they fail. People vote with their dollars all the time and businesses are forced to respond or die. The government has no such constraints and can continue forward with whatever terrible policies they want so long as they spend the majority of their time and effort securing re-election.

>> Edelman said that people tend to trust businesses more than governments, in part because “business gets stuff done” while government is seen as “incapable.” People trust technology companies in particular because “they deliver value.” <<

UK Brexit vote: most (not all) business leaders were advising a remain vote. Apart from the 'immigration' trigger, the 'take back control' trigger does come up in my conversations with those who voted leave.

The Labour party spokesbeing on the radio this morning was developing a vaguely anti-globalist line about spreading the fruits of recovery more evenly and defending social spending. We shall see.

The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones.

The race to the bottom started with Ireland, suggestions are to cut the tax to 15% in the rest of the UK, with some voices pushing for 10% or even 5% corporate tax. Of course this has nothing to do with using the opportunity created by the brexit power vacuum to reward some special interests.

> The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. < The same taxes that the larger corporates avoid in the first place? This seems a flawed plan.

It's just some nice pork for the friends of those that made this decision, other than that I don't think it has even a remote chance of working.

Businesses favor stability over almost everything else and the way the UK has been going in the last couple of weeks the degree of uncertainty is so large that they'd have to set the rate at a negative percentage to attract new business. Nobody in their right mind is looking to move their currently successful business to the UK unless it is a business that can be moved out at a moments notice.

Race to the bottom (i.e. competition) is a good thing, it reduces waste and inefficiency.

In lala-economic-theory-land yes. But this is not companies competing for the favors of customers. This is nation states competing for the favors of companies and that is a totally different matter.

In the real world you need taxes to operate a country and with big business being able to relocate their capital and their profits at a moments notice corporations have a substantial advantage over nation states (which are by definition somewhat immobile).

So the 'inefficiency' that you seek to eliminate is the oil required to keep the machine running. Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind. It won't show up in the quarterly reports for a long time and by the time it does they can easily move on to another place.

Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg).

Ireland is the exception and it only succeeded there for reasons that the UK will find hard to emulate.

>Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg).

Infrastructure spending represents an incredibly low percentage of government spending in most countries, see e.g https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... and http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart.

>Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind.

East Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong maintain achieve better healthcare and education outcomes than most western countries in spite of lower government spending. While they may have less welfare spending and greater economic inequality, this certainly isn't an impediment to productivity.

> In lala-economic-theory-land yes. But this is not companies competing for the favors of customers. This is nation states competing for the favors of companies and that is a totally different matter.

Why is it bad when businesses find that conditions for them constantly get better everywhere? Is there something inherently evil or bad about businesses? This is usually a position hardcore Socalists would take.

> In the real world you need taxes to operate a country and with big business being able to relocate their capital and their profits at a moments notice corporations have a substantial advantage over nation states (which are by definition somewhat immobile).

No corporation can move its operations and profits within a moments notice. This takes usually years and the absolute majority of businesses do not even have the option to ever do this.

The problem of most Western societies is that the top 10% basically pay for 75%+ of everything, the middle class pays an acceptable amount and then theres 30% of free loaders with 29,9% being the ones at the bottom and 0,1% on the top.

>Why is it bad when businesses find that conditions for them constantly get better everywhere?

If those conditions are getting better at the expense of the local populace, then it most certainly can be bad.

The top 10% also have more than 75% of the money, so this makes a lot of sense. They have more than 75% of the money, so I imagine it's a good bit higher than you imagine.

How do the freeloaders pay taxes like the rich if they can't afford life circumstances that allow them to get educations similar to the rich?

Healthy countries need taxes to boost their populace up to an optimal level of health and education. Maximize the people that could potentially become high-value.

Because nations need taxes, not a few rich people or organisations at the top.

Thats why so many big businesses are setting up in undeveloped countries.

Countries aren't machines built to serve companies. Whole countries shouldn't be made to become "more efficient" (or poorer) for the sake of companies.

Countries are there to work in the interest of it's population and business owners are a part of any free and democratic society.

If you don't have a mechanism of business owners and private enterprise that are determined by the vote of the population (via spending money privately on products) then you'll need a state controlled market and I doubt you would like the results. (Venezuela, North Korea, Soviet Union)

Just imagine some government committee is deciding on what the national variant of the new iPhone should look like.

Back to OA and my UK perspective. You've seen the reaction to the mild austerity (compared to, say, Greece or even Spain) in the Brexit vote. Go too far down the 'race to the bottom' thing and you'll see a lot more reacting. There are political limits and neo-libralism is only one possible perspective, not a natural law.

Let's cut corporate income taxes to 0%. And increase income taxes on investors and employees to make the change revenue neutral. That would increase economic growth and efficiency by allowing corporations to focus on generating real customer value instead of financial engineering for tax avoidance.

This only works if you'd do it in a larger body of entities (such as... the EU), otherwise it will just lead to companies taking advantage of the fact that they are mobile and countries are not.

The UK has made a step in that direction, the last budget increased taxes on dividends.

You really can't rule out the "they took our jobs!" angle[1], whether it is legitimate or not.

[1] http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104259/they-took-our-jobs

Honestly I think we are just finally seeing the effect of the fall of mass media - there is no real replacement for the traditional establishment newspapers with enough gravitas to give anyone confidence in our institutions - even the media currently considered quality is mostly whining, hysteria and buzzfeed adverts.

Ok, First of all, I feel like "around the world" is stretching it a bit much for the purposes of the article. Secondly, I don't think you can explain the core reasons for this without talking about a specific country, because despite the similarities of even, say, the US and the U.K., the underlying causalities are much different. Thirdly, it is ominous when the author talks about the media consuming educated group, because the main thing being ignored in that front is the fact that operation mockingbird never went away and (the US at least) has turned propaganda into an invasive art. People are dangerous when they are easily propagandized, but especially moreso when they don't even realize it. Of course that's why in politics the 50-80 year olds are the primary target. Because they vote and they consume the bullshit off $TVStation with little incredulity. This is also why the Internet is under increasing threat from the supranational oligarchy, because the anarchistic freedom of thought it encourages is dangerous to them.

I could tell you about where this trend is going, but that would involve conspiracy theory and nasty confrontation of facts that most people don't want to do to be honest. As for why "the people" are trusting "the government" less, I think while much of it is the natural reaction to a government with corruption run amok, I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the increased distrust for government is a deliberate play by the supranational oligarchy vying to undermine the only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck, and that's government.

The other main factor is the lack of the rule of law. I think the lack of it has always been there, with varying degrees by subject of course, but now people find out about the true extent of the corruption and lack of rule of law via the Internet and I think it's breeding revolutionary attitudes.

When everyone sees stuff like bankers do obviously illegal, immoral, and amoral stuff, then get paid for it, and then get no legal repercussions, the rest of us are slowly gonna start saying "fuck it", and abandoning faith in institutions.

Who bailed out the bankers? Oh, that's right – the institution you describe as the "only thing that truly has any reigns around its neck". I'm not surprised your prediction involves a conspiracy theory.

See, you actually bring up a good point, which is that the common discourse tends to divide into anti government/pro business, pro government/anti business, when in reality part of the problem is the lines between business and gov are so blurred how can you tell? I get the feeling you are on the bad gov/pro bus side, but I don't want to put words into your mouth.

So yes, the gov did bail out the bankers, but mostly because of regulatory capture and essentially hostage holding from the banks (holding our economy with a gun to its head saying give me the money or I'll shoot!), so this is where I usually hear about how it's the people's fault for electing the government.

So how we can keep going up the chain? In the end the responsibility for the welfare of the people is the government, so though we have allowed our citizenry to be propagandized and our votes manipulated until they almost don't count, the real prescription lays in effective and properly representative constitutional government. That's what America was founded on, and while it was never perfect it is what we should strive for.

I have seen first hand what reduction of government just because people are afraid of it does in many places. West Texas for example, ends up with privatizing water, electricity, and numerous other things, and then all the people are wondering why their service is bad, hugely overpriced, and rife with corruption, and worst of all complete lack of accountability.

Be very very wary of the knee jerk reaction to bad government being to get rid of government vs improving the existing one.

That being said, I have always been a fan of G Edward Griffon's saying, "If in doubt, choose less government". So please don't confuse me with a new dealer or anything that extreme. I see your point, I just think there is more room for nuance in the discussion.

I'd say I'm a business-bad/government-worse person but I'll choose lots of bad businesses who can't tax people over one massive and corrupt government who can tax people.

I think the assessments given by many people are a bit silly. You can't be a bigot or a facist in voting for Brexit. It's absolutely ridiculous people overlook the basic issues at play such as Ireland having to charge for water or basically allowing an entire group to set up laws and have very little say in the process (Its an EU wide law and there's basically no say about it).

I think years from now once the enchantment of free movement is over people will realise the beast (Thte EU) that it is.

I've seen that Brexit tweet about the Yougov poll on distrust before.

The context it misses, is that this poll was taken in the middle of the campaign, when people already knew that these groups disagreed with them. There's no consistent way to say "I trust economists/Obama in regard to Brexit, but I also know that economists/Obama think that Brexit is a bad idea, and I think Brexit is a good idea." The easiest thing to give way in that narrow situation is trust but does that generalize?

I have my own opinions about what's driving Trump and Brexit, but I'm wary of people forcing their preconceived notions onto this issue.

For example, Nate Silver's 538 pointed out early on that Trump supporters are relatively rich. In the Brexit campaign, working-class Labour supporters who may be in the process of switching to UKIP are focussed on, yet the vast majority of Conservative voters, generally thought of as the party of the rich and selfish, and that has ruled the UK for most of the last 3 decades voted Brexit, and yet no-one wants to talk about that for some reason.

Most people don't know what's going on in government and judge things by how life is around them. Unfortunately that's been bad in many places due mostly to deflation of a type not much seem since the 1930s IMHO. This then gets blamed on the politicians, immigrants and the like as most people couldn't even tell you what "insufficient aggregate demand" means.

Y'know, it also gets blamed on the rich and corporations which is just as populist.

Sorry, i need to brain dump something.

A: the free travel of workers within EU was basically there since the early coal and steel agreement.

B: said workers still needed to present passports etc when crossing borders.

C: the Schengen agreement removes the passport requirement (UK is not a signatory to it though).

D: EU expands eastwards, leading to an influx of workers that can underbid locals.

E: refugee crisis ends up being the straw that breaks the camels back.

Regarding "D: EU expands eastwards", my understanding is that this was largely driven by the then British Conservative Government as a ploy to prevent further integration between EU countries. "Wider, not deeper" was the theory.

So the free movement of Eastern Europeans into the UK was due in large part to the Tories.

It was done under New Labour, and it was Blair/Brown who chose not to activate transitional controls. So not the Conservatives.

However I'm sure they'd have done the same thing if they had been in power at the time. Resentment about EU immigration followed the entry of eastern European states into the EU (with the UK being one of the only countries to allow their populations in from the start).

I understand the point that the author is trying to make, but "around the world" seems to be an overstatement. More like around the America and Europe.

In countries like Russia or China, trust of government is the very basis of governance. The country would collapse rather fast if a sizeable portion of people stop trusting the government.

Seeing how the general populous deemed George Bush a "trustworthy" president I'm really starting to worry about the judgement of the common man.

To get trust you need transparency. And by transparency I don't access to information but to information in the form of knowledge. We to to upgrade government to the digital age to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida

> A “person like me” is now viewed as twice as credible as a government leader

I wonder what this statistic looks like over time in China and India.

I read all comments on HN so far here. No mention to the huge shift in South America.

Also I am from Brazil.

First, what I mean by huge shift:

During cold war, us backed, violently (for example by threatening to bomb rio de janeiro with and aircraft carrier if the then elected president resisted the coup, and later with cia "disappearing" dissidents, and actually bombing other countries) a couple of brutal dictatorships.

When cold war ended and people wanted change, left wing parties, some that were guerrilla during the cold war and also had lots of blood on their hands (and they fought for communist victory, not for freedom as people like to believe) decided to use the opportunity to take power themselves and join the establishment.

The left created an organization named foro de São Paulo, and steadily won elections (not necessarily fairly...) and managed to take over almost every single country in South America.

Then, they implemented policies that remember us democratic party policies, not truly left or communist, but a big state, with socialist and neoliberal policies, lots of crony capitalism, with money flowing freely between big corporations and politicians.

Now they are all falling, but we are not sure who will take their place, Argentina had Maurício Macri victory, Brazil is seeing a rising popularity of Jair Bolsonaro (kinda like a brazilian Trump, except he explicitly defended the cold war dictatorship, militarism and torture), other countries are also unstable or trying to open without losing power (Cuba for example... that is one of the foro de São Paulo founding members)

I wrote all this to say that those dismissing the headline because it is only about us and uk are wrong.

-------------

Now about the subject.

I am someone that grew up with a leftward education, but shifted to a reactionary/regressive right wing view in my adulthood. I will write some points as for why, and I am sure a couple of them will fit for most Trump/brexit/Bolsonaro/golden dawn/that rising Japanese nationalist party voters.

Where I started: my dream as a kid was have a completely normal life, wife, kids, "salaryman" job. My political position was that "capitalists" (what now I know are cronism) were hurting people, and that everyone having equal rights and opportunity is great.

1. Women didn't get the right to work, they already had that right, during industrial revolution they were the main workforce...

2. Women instead lost the right to be mothers, they were obliged to work, obliged to compete with men, wanting to be mother, have low status but easier job, or not wanting to earn like men and work like men became a bad thing, enemy of "the cause".

3. Workforce suddenly doubled. And when corporations noticed.

4. In a world with rising automation, sudden workforce doubling is bad idea.

5. Look at the average income of the average person (not family) in us since feminism rise in the 60s. You will see wages are declining.

6. Look for white men in their 35s wage and full employment in us, compare it to counties that had major votes toward Trump.

7. Divorce laws became very strong, including allowing divorce for no reason at all. Most divorces, in the entire world, are initiated by women, here in Brazil women initiate 73% of divorces, most of them with no justification.

8. Look into divorce statistics, amount of divorces.

9. Why a sane man now would marry? you go, marry, and get no rights, only obligations and the risk of a divorce fucking up your life.

10. Divorce is a major cause os suicide among men. Look into us statistics for death rate of white men middle aged over time. Again compare with Trump voter map.

11. Women now don't need men, they are more educated, more employed, die much less on workplace, die less by suicide, die less by violence. sadly women also love to point all that to their boyfriends too.

12. So, you want a career, the fad now is science, computers and engineering, you plan in working until you are "stable" enough to take care of potential kids in a potential divorce. why do you need me then? and who want kids of a "old" woman where the pregnancy is riskier and kids have more "birth defects"?

13. Still women want to fuck, drink, play and get wasted much as men. Awesome, no need to get married to get sex anymore!

14. Women is now pregnant of a random stranger. She said it is "her body", also, pension laws are very unfair... let "her body" then abort or not and care for the kid.

15. Look for how many fatherless kids there are in western world.

16. Look for what percentage of people in prison are fatherless (from both single, and divorced mothers with full custody).

17. So, I am stupid, decided to get educated even if it is pointless because the generation that then were adults told me to do so. Now I have thousands of debt, never got a salaried legal job, don't have a house, pay rent through the nose, don't have a car either.

18. Oh, ecenomy crisis hit! House prices fall but are still unaffordable and I still have too much debt and no credit. rent is still rising despite housing price falling. My landlord owns the entire building and more half of the other buildings in the block and in a couple more city blocks. he kicks me out anyway when my startuo fails.

19. Adult, near my 30s, in debt, still never found my first salaried job. Didn't found yet a girl that wants to be mom or that doesn't mind a bearded dude that live with his mom.

20. Decide to explain how life is going bad, people tell me I have white privilege becauset I am half-white. Being partially white is seemly enough to "owe my soul" to black people, according to a USP student.

21. Being partially white also means my house is fair game for blacks to invade and steal 8 times.

22. Can't complain, I am "privileged".

23. Complain anyway, now I am privileged due to being male/straight/young

24. Decide to discuss politics, get kicked out/banned/driven off before I voice my opinion just because I have white looking skin (nevermind the black person nose on the middle of my face) or for being male.

25. Get embraced by /pol/, trumpists, bolsonarists, men rights, etc...

26. Organizations there full of bigoted batshit crazy racists and gymnophones (people that fear women, usually guys that were mocked for being raped, scammed or had their lives destroyed by women). But they are the only ones willing to discuss my problems.

27. All I wanted was job, wife, kids and normal life. There are no jobs, women don't want to marry and when they do they divorce, and take your kids with them. And doesn't matter where I go, people hate me because I am white straight male. Except when I go near neo Nazi/pol/trumpists/bolsonarists, they like me, even if I am half black. They are actually tolerant...

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 consequences to themselves.

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.

Exactly. If you left the ruling elite to breed amoungst themselves you would end up with something like the Russian nobility - idiotic and doomed.

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.

Yes. They know they have been conned, but they don't know how to fight the elites. They are strong, but leaderless and so are left with only the Sampson option.

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 give you one example: the murder rate in the US is the lowest its been since 1963. The way the media directs the public's attention and magnifies the coverage of the violence that does happen makes the public think that there's a huge terrorism, crime and gun violence crisis.

Anyone who wants to actually figure out what is going on just needs to look at the numerical data, but that's boring. Instead political life is a bunch of people reposting whatever article got published today to freak the public out or very narrowly guide them into strengthening their belief in a particular ideological narrative.

People aren't stupid, but given limited information they are easily influenced.

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

>Let me give you one example: the murder rate in the US is the lowest its been since 1963. The way the media directs the publics attention and magnifies the coverage of the violence that does happen makes the public think that there's a huge terrorism, crime and gun violence crisis.

Yep, this is true. However mass shootings over the same period of time have been going up. Compared to the rest of the industrialized western world, we do have a gun violence crisis. Considering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r..., the US is sitting between Uruguay and Montenegro with a rate of 10.54 per 100,000. Whether or not it's been falling since 1963 (and I know it has been) it's still at an appalling place and we deserve better. Not to privilege the West over everywhere else but we are closer to most other so-called "Western countries" culturally speaking than countries that are not traditionally part of the West. Within that framework, Finland has the next-highest rate, and it's at 3.25 per 100,000 (i.e. about three times less).

> 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.

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 all around the world. We can start by naming plagiarized PhDs in Germany, including (ironically) one education minister.

However, if by 'ruling class' you don't necessarily mean the government, then maybe you're right. If that's what you're saying, then the government would be ruled by the economy which would be controlled by those who were put on such a track at a young age.

I am not suggesting that all of the ruling class are intelligent, but that almost none of the masses are these days. Anyone born into the masses with the talent and brains to challenge the rulers is brought into the ruling class via education.

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.

As I understood, he wanted to change the economic model of Greece only. It's the EU that didn't want economic pluriformity.

I'm university educated, where do I get my ruling class membership card? I'd like to change a few things.

If only education equaled intelligence. The intelligent might all be educated, but the educated are certainly not all intelligent :)

"Lefties" isn't really an insult any more than "neoliberals" is. It's just a description of a political position.

What you're doing here though, is classical left-ism: taking an innocuous statement and claiming it's terribly offensive in order to distract from his/her point.

"Lefties" is name calling. If one didn't mean it that way one would at a minimum say "leftists" or "the left"—assuming a native English speaker, which may not have been the case above.

Your comment turned this into an ideological swipe in its own right. Please don't do that here. If we're to have civil, substantive discourse across political differences, people need to respect each others' views. That may be too much to hope for, but we can at least eschew derision.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030641 and marked it off-topic.

'Lefty' is just dismissing someone's viewpoint as invalid because it differes from your own. It's a way to argue without actually saying anything of value.

'Neoliberal' on the other hand is a term with quite well-defined definitions.

Before elections, Govt is promoting

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud

And after elections, Govt is colluding with

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chindia

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