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I may be reading this too late at night, but the theory seems to be that our benevolent, perfectly logical Ivy League-educated overlords regrettably have to bre

I may be reading this too late at night, but the theory seems to be that our benevolent, perfectly logical Ivy League-educated overlords regrettably have to break a few eggs to make a delicious omelette of economic prosperity for all, and those broken eggs are enough to make people throw up their hands and vote for Trump/Brexit/whatever just for a chance to cling to the present, the good old days, at the expense of that shining, golden future. I have a feeling that people are actually pissed off because they don't think the established elite are generally benevolent, but rather that they act in their own interests at the expense of the prosperity of the middle and lower classes. Whether this is true is beyond the scope of this comment, but any discussion of this seemingly relevant alternate theory is conspicuously absent from the article.

majewsky 10y ago
Indeed. I can understand that a lot of economic policies can be viewed in the way the author describes (a relentless pursuit of efficiency), but Ivy League overlords are also doing a lot of stuff that's just plain greed and can't be explained away with efficiency. For example high-frequency trading. Or (here in Germany) renting ruinous hotels to the government as refugee centers at bizarre rates because there was literally no other big-enough accommodation available.
- gpvos 10y ago
  High-frequency trading is usually justified by pointing at increased market fluidity, which is a positive thing in principle. Whether that is enough justification for the problems it causes is clearly something that should be discussed more.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    Ah right, market fluidity was their cover-up story. I'm absolutely not convinced, seeing how billions of dollars and euros are pumped into the market to increase fluidity, with questionable success.
  - patrickg_zill 10y ago
    That's the justification. If you go to e.g. zerohedge.com and find an article showing the millisecond by millisecond bidding by hft, you might come to the conclusion that the justification is hollow.
CM30 10y ago
Pretty much this. And that's the issue with globalisation; it's great for those at the top, decent for those at the very bottom and often rather awful for those in the middle. The votes for Brexit, Trump, various far left and right wing parties, etc are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself". They've seen how little any of this is doing for them as workers, and how every system seems stacked in favour of the well off, and they just want to see it all burn to the ground.
- return0 10y ago
  > are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself" I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else`. It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she stopped serving their purposes (It was quite a relevation to watch reddit go full-on military-dictatorship this past week, but hey reddit is not reality). Democracy is a very adaptive concept and there is a saying that there are no dead ends with it.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Replacing the "elite" with an underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" is begging for a void. Come on, we're software engineers; we know how crazy it is to turn off a working system without having a viable plan for its replacement.
    - Nursie 10y ago
      Software != Politics. Revolutions and other acts that tear things down do often result in worse outcomes, yet sometimes the tearing down is necessary, regardless.
    - return0 10y ago
      > underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" I think it's pretty well outlined what is that "something else". The implementation is not there (obviously), but the API exists, for example anti-immigration, [edit]pro-protectionism etc. Most people dismiss it as non-existent though, due to liberal reflexes.
erikb 10y ago
Not 100% what the article said. Yes, prosperity for all is what the elite wants to achieve. But, they have a different understanding what "prosperity for all" means. For the normal person it may not mean "more growth, more efficiency" but a stable life, job, apartment. The assumption is that most people want less risk not more gain, while the people at the top think more gain is what everybody wants. Just that much explaining the article. My personal opinion is that discussing the elite as psychopaths who just want to exploit humanity as boring. Yes these people exist and at the top there may be more than in the middle, but it's simply not common human behaviour. Most people want to be geniunely valuable to the other people around them. Your boss wants to make a good impression on you, etc. But the understanding of the world and how the different factors of your life influence you differently than the factors of other people's life influences them, that is what leads people to make different decisions and set different priorities.
venomsnake 10y ago
Call it the syndrome of vox.com - there was this article about how Bernie's trade protectionism will have a "price" of depriving millions of third world countries' citizens of chances to develop and escape poverty. I blinked twice or trice to see if they were not joking. But no - they were seriously thinking that some other's country citizens' problems should be considered equal to the US citizen ones by the President of US. I agree that all people are equal, but elected officials/statesmen should always consider their constituents couple of orders of magnitude more equal than the rest of the people. The people right now want a real statesmen like Bismarck: "The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." The US and British (and a lot others) working and lower middle classes want to hear that they are more important to their own government than the foreigners. And Trump and Brexiters are the only ones that give that message. So was Sanders while campaigning.

majewsky 10y ago

Indeed. I can understand that a lot of economic policies can be viewed in the way the author describes (a relentless pursuit of efficiency), but Ivy League overlords are also doing a lot of stuff that's just plain greed and can't be explained away with efficiency. For example high-frequency trading. Or (here in Germany) renting ruinous hotels to the government as refugee centers at bizarre rates because there was literally no other big-enough accommodation available.

gpvos 10y ago
High-frequency trading is usually justified by pointing at increased market fluidity, which is a positive thing in principle. Whether that is enough justification for the problems it causes is clearly something that should be discussed more.
- majewsky 10y ago
  Ah right, market fluidity was their cover-up story. I'm absolutely not convinced, seeing how billions of dollars and euros are pumped into the market to increase fluidity, with questionable success.
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  That's the justification. If you go to e.g. zerohedge.com and find an article showing the millisecond by millisecond bidding by hft, you might come to the conclusion that the justification is hollow.

CM30 10y ago

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

return0 10y ago
> are a way of saying "let's watch the elite's world and system collapse on itself" I don't think people want to replace the elites with void. Maybe that's the case for nihilistic, fringe far-right or far-left parties. But when majorities or near majorities are voting for Trump or Brexit, they want to replace the elites with something else`. It's funny to watch the elites suddenly renouncing democracy because she stopped serving their purposes (It was quite a relevation to watch reddit go full-on military-dictatorship this past week, but hey reddit is not reality). Democracy is a very adaptive concept and there is a saying that there are no dead ends with it.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Replacing the "elite" with an underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" is begging for a void. Come on, we're software engineers; we know how crazy it is to turn off a working system without having a viable plan for its replacement.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    Software != Politics. Revolutions and other acts that tear things down do often result in worse outcomes, yet sometimes the tearing down is necessary, regardless.
  - return0 10y ago
    > underspecified, possibly unachievable "something else" I think it's pretty well outlined what is that "something else". The implementation is not there (obviously), but the API exists, for example anti-immigration, [edit]pro-protectionism etc. Most people dismiss it as non-existent though, due to liberal reflexes.

erikb 10y ago

Not 100% what the article said. Yes, prosperity for all is what the elite wants to achieve. But, they have a different understanding what "prosperity for all" means. For the normal person it may not mean "more growth, more efficiency" but a stable life, job, apartment. The assumption is that most people want less risk not more gain, while the people at the top think more gain is what everybody wants. Just that much explaining the article. My personal opinion is that discussing the elite as psychopaths who just want to exploit humanity as boring. Yes these people exist and at the top there may be more than in the middle, but it's simply not common human behaviour. Most people want to be geniunely valuable to the other people around them. Your boss wants to make a good impression on you, etc. But the understanding of the world and how the different factors of your life influence you differently than the factors of other people's life influences them, that is what leads people to make different decisions and set different priorities.

venomsnake 10y ago

Call it the syndrome of vox.com - there was this article about how Bernie's trade protectionism will have a "price" of depriving millions of third world countries' citizens of chances to develop and escape poverty. I blinked twice or trice to see if they were not joking. But no - they were seriously thinking that some other's country citizens' problems should be considered equal to the US citizen ones by the President of US. I agree that all people are equal, but elected officials/statesmen should always consider their constituents couple of orders of magnitude more equal than the rest of the people. The people right now want a real statesmen like Bismarck: "The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." The US and British (and a lot others) working and lower middle classes want to hear that they are more important to their own government than the foreigners. And Trump and Brexiters are the only ones that give that message. So was Sanders while campaigning.