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Comment by hal9000xp | Hacker News Reader

I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK. Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members. Of course, there is a risk that UK won't do as good as Switzerland does but it's only risk, it's not established fact yet.

Regarding article itself ... well, it's The Guardian so it's very predictable what they will write about wealth.

Regarding author, it's the same, respected and famous scientist is longstanding Labour Party supporter. With all due respect to mister Hawking, I won't buy socialism in any possible form and any interpretation even from world famous scientist.

I would prefer to enjoy to read his great science books.

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> I won't buy socialism in any possible form and any interpretation even from world famous scientist

This is a pretty ridiculous statement.

Do you believe in taxation? Do you believe there are some things that a collective organization of people can do better than an individual - be that organization a family, village, private company, or a federal government? OK, then you buy into and support the premise of socialism.

Socialism/capitalism isn't binary. Don't be arbitrarily afraid of either word or concept, but do be afraid of either extreme, as extremes are always untenable. Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra-wealthy is a move to restore balance and guide us away from one extreme which has gained in popularity in the past 30 years.

I'm 23 and I live in the US. The fear surrounding terms like socialism/communism to this day, even with my generation, amazes me. My peers have learned to use these terms as an insult without knowing exactly why they are insulting - they just feel a vague sense that socialism is "un-American".

I get that we had to turn on the propaganda machine full blast during the cold war as the threat of nuclear extinction is no laughing matter. But with programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. making up such a huge portion of our federal budget, maybe it's time to rethink our hatred and out-of-hand fear of simple terms that we use to talk about ownership and wealth redistribution.

> Socialism/capitalism isn't binary.

This is correct.

> Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra-wealthy

This is not a move toward socialism.

Socialism is defined by communal ownership of the means of production and exchange. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the same. These terms are specific in meaning, as they are jargon in the field of economics.

I'm not particularly interested in engaging in a political or economic debate right now, so I'm not trying to pass judgment on what is good or bad, but if you're going to make a post about people mischaracterizing a concept while doing so yourself.

Ninja edit: That capitalism and socialism are often seen in combination with other particular social and economic arrangements does not in any way make these things a component of socialism or capitalism.

>Moving towards "socialism" by increasing taxation on the ultra-wealthy is a move to restore balance and guide us away from one extreme which has gained in popularity in the past 30 years.

What you just described is not socialism, or even approaching socialism. It could be best described as social-democracy, which is a completely unrelated concept. Socialism would be banning private enterprise in favor of direct state ownership of the economy.

That's why people have an aversion to the word, because it's an awful concept. Not because of some irrational fear.

I may be completely wrong on this one but isn't social-democracy a sort of compromise between socialism and capitalism? So I wouldn't call it entirely unrelated.

Whether it is a compromise does not alter the defining characteristics of capitalism and socialism, those being private ownership and communal ownership, respectively, of the means of production and exchange.

These terms are not used as in the vernacular but are precisely defined pieces of economic jargon.

You're not wrong. Where proper socialism seeks to supplant capitalism (and property law) through the power of the state, social democracy instead seeks to exist within the basic capitalistic framework while attempting to curbe its perceived social injustices through state intervention into the market economy and provisioning of social welfare services.

In some respect it's a compromise; mostly in that many of Europe's social democrats emerged from discredited hard core socialist parties. American social democrats, on the other hand, emerged out of a split with liberalism and ironically kept the name.

The distinction is important though. Social democracy in practice translates to simple fiscal policy. Actual socialism would imply a complete overthrow of our judicial and legislative systems.

Switzerland does have access to the EU single market and implements many features of EU law, such as free movement of people. The UK might end up with a similar arrangement eventually, but if we adopt most of the EU principles but without any political influence I fail to see what the point was. Even if we manage to find a satisfactory solution, we will have to go through a lot of pain to get there, and we were already doing very well as a member of the EU.

I understand this but there is a reason why Switzerland decided not to join EU in the first place. I don't know exact reason. I suggest they preferred to selectively accept some terms instead of taking all burden of membership in the EU.

I like open-economy and globalisation but I would prefer more decentralised system instead of concentrating all power in the single place and then impose regulations across the board. In short, I would not put all eggs to one basket.

Although, I understand that some people voted for Brexit just because of emotions.

I guess it comes down to whether being able to pick relationship terms à la carte outweighs the benefits of discounts via a bundle deal and having some influence via a seat at the table. There's a chance that, long term, this restructuring is worth the human-effort capital.

Why would the UK do badly outside the EU?

Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU.

And the EU is not just a trade deal. It is a single market, like the US is a single market, with a great degree of regulatory uniformity. Which means accepting laws from a central source (in the US it is Washington, in the EU it is Brussels).

What you think would happen to Texas were to secede? With border controls? With its internal regulation for its market? Paying tariffs to access to the rest of the US? No free-movement of people? And all of this, and we have Florida, right next to Texas that just remains in the US; why invest in an independent Texas if you can invest in Florida?

(Of course the EU is not like the US. The EU is a very thin federal layer compared to the US federal government. e.g. EU states go to war on their own all the time.)

The UK might get a Switzerland like deal. But that is very close to being a full-fledged member. That is not a hard-Brexit.

As a resident of 'Washington' I would prefer you qualify the capitol of the nation by either it's full name 'Washington District of Columbia' or the common short-hands there of 'Washington DC' or just 'DC'.

Please, stop confusing the state and the city liberated from all states in the nation.

> Well because 45%+ of its exports go to the EU.

Implying that ~ 55% of its exports go outside the EU, and since the EU is a customs union, external trade incurs tariffs by default and members are prohibited from negotiating their own trade deals to change that. The 55% number is despite those constraints; it's not unreasonable to think that the proportion would be quite a bit higher if EU trade had tariffs and trade with the rest of the world didn't [1]. The 55% number is also rising steadily as EU growth lags behind the rest of the world. I'd be surprised if Brexit ends without free UK/EU trade, but even if it did I don't think it'd be the disaster many are painting.

Short-term things will be rocky given the uncertainty and adjustment pains; long-term things will be fine; medium-term could go either way depending on how the various parties behave.

[1] That's simplifying a bit, since the EU does have free trade deals with some countries, although notably not with the US or China or India or much of the rest of the Commonwealth. Also, some of the UK's trade with the rest of the world is currently routed through the EU, though given how cheap freight is these days that shouldn't be too hard to change if necessary.

Geography still matters a lot. Japan [1] trades mostly with Asia, and the UK [2] with nearby countries (it trades more with Sweden than Canada; more with the Netherlands than China).

When it comes to trade deals, the UK does not have all that much leverage. And Brexit was (to some extent) a vote for protectionism (e.g. against TTIP).

[1] - http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export...

[2] - http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export...

Sure, but still, 55% is more than 45%.

I agree that much of the support for Brexit had protectionist roots, though I think that was far more about labour protectionism than goods. Very few people in the UK have even heard of TTIP; it doesn't get mainstream coverage here. That may change once the UK steps out of the EU's trade-protectionist umbrella, of course; those trying to spin the result as a ringing popular endorsement of Extreme Globalization Turbo Max Pro are definitely being disingenuous.

"I actually don't understand why Brexit should necessary be bad for UK"

Leaving the EU could have some advantages, but those advantages need would only come from a very VERY long, slow drawn out plan (eg. coming up with new laws and trade deals ready for the switch over) over many MANY years. Leaving the EU isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but doing it in the way it was done, now, so fast, with so much misinformation? The only outcome could be negative.

Sure everyone wants to rewire the server farm, but you don't just go down and start ripping out cables because "Once it's done it will be better".

> Switzerland is doing very well outside of EU despite it's literally surrounded by EU members

It also has a lot of agreements with the EU that include accepting restrictions on what immigration limits they can impose. Those are exactly the sort of restrictions that the Brexit campaign were complaining about, so if the UK went for a deal like the one Switzerland has, it would make a lot of the brexiteers angry.

Even in the best foreseeable case (where very little changes), the UK will go from having a say in the way the EU develops and the rules it abides by to gain access to the EU market to not having a say, but having to follow those rules anyway.

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