4 ms·

I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." The Trump and Brexit electi

by api 8y ago

I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." The Trump and Brexit elections were for some people a kind of Luddite revolt -- not against technology per se but against globalization. This was a revolt by the working classes of the developed world against a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them. I can't say I blame them much. I don't know about the UK but in the USA nobody cares. The American left looks down on the working class for their religious beliefs and hates them for their social conservatism. The American right pretends to care long enough to win an election and then goes back to pursuing policies that hollow out industry in favor of lucrative labor arbitrage profits for major corporations. This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s. Developed nations that don't have these problems are those that have taken steps to protect (through social safety nets) and retrain those whose jobs are threatened. But here in the US and (AFIAK) UK we have made college dramatically more expensive, allowed housing and health care to inflate far beyond wages, and generally twiddled our thumbs and looked the other way. It's almost like some fraction of the US educated and wealthy classes delight in the economic impoverishment of its middle and have pursued policies designed to do exactly that. I say this because as the effects have become apparent we have doubled down on these policies. What are the victims of these policies going to do? Nobody listens to them. Nobody cares. So in the end all they're left with is political revolts that most of them from what I've read understand are likely impotent, but at least somebody is discussing it. I'm a coastal "tech elite" and I'm writing this post and I wouldn't be if Hillary had won and Brexit hadn't passed. That's democracy I guess. Edit: one more point: During the election I watched a show (Colbert I think but I'm not sure) where Trump supporters and "MAGA" were mocked by walking around and asking them when they thought America was great. None of them had a good off the cuff way to answer the question. Well here's the answer if anyone is curious: http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/productivity-versus-wages.jpg http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/productivity-... Draw a line through 1973. Before: America was great. After: America is not great. Highly skilled and educated Americans don't get the appeal of MAGA because they have been spared to a much greater extent from this divergence. I would argue they've still felt it but more through indirect means like housing hyperinflation on the coasts, but it hasn't been visceral enough to provoke an extreme response. I'm not and never was a Trump supporter but I totally get the appeal of that slogan and it's not stupid at all. It's very real.

macintux 8y ago
> a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them I sadly can't disagree with most of your comment, but I'm skeptical about this. I see drugs impoverishing people. I see unaffordable health care impoverishing people. The hollowing out of the traditional factory economy certainly hurt, but I wonder how much of that was artificially inflated by the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was decimated by the two world wars. Would the factories still be there if we had stiffer trade barriers? I think globalization has become the scapegoat for many things that the American people aren't comfortable with (demographic changes, the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy) while not getting the credit for the vast improvements it has brought. Growth has slowed dramatically. But that's not impoverishment.
- api 8y ago
  I see what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating the effect of job loss, wage reduction, and general economic hollowing out. The thing that makes it impoverishment is that our economic system is inflationary. It's designed for a world where everything always (over time) goes up: stocks, wages, prices, etc. Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely separate discussion but it's something we came up with to deal with deflationary problems during the first half of the 20th century and there it stands. Globalization and automation are extremely deflationary. High technology is extremely deflationary. They place extreme downward pressure on wages. But we still operate our economic system as if everything always goes up. So... college tuition goes up. Housing goes up. Health care goes up. Energy and food go up. Anything with pricing power goes up. Wages don't, especially unskilled wages in the interior where you have the double whammy of regional labor oversupply and lower skill levels. The crunch is real and extreme. Many of the other things you mention are effects, not causes. The addiction epidemic in America's interior reminds me a lot of the alcoholism and drug addiction epidemic that followed the collapse of the USSR.
apeacox 8y ago
> This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s. there were protests, from Seattle '99 until Genova '01, where many different groups merged into a single protest agaist that kind of globalization. but after 9/11 everything almost vanished in the name of worldwide anti-terrorism.

by api 8y ago

macintux 8y ago

> a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them I sadly can't disagree with most of your comment, but I'm skeptical about this. I see drugs impoverishing people. I see unaffordable health care impoverishing people. The hollowing out of the traditional factory economy certainly hurt, but I wonder how much of that was artificially inflated by the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was decimated by the two world wars. Would the factories still be there if we had stiffer trade barriers? I think globalization has become the scapegoat for many things that the American people aren't comfortable with (demographic changes, the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy) while not getting the credit for the vast improvements it has brought. Growth has slowed dramatically. But that's not impoverishment.

api 8y ago
I see what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating the effect of job loss, wage reduction, and general economic hollowing out. The thing that makes it impoverishment is that our economic system is inflationary. It's designed for a world where everything always (over time) goes up: stocks, wages, prices, etc. Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely separate discussion but it's something we came up with to deal with deflationary problems during the first half of the 20th century and there it stands. Globalization and automation are extremely deflationary. High technology is extremely deflationary. They place extreme downward pressure on wages. But we still operate our economic system as if everything always goes up. So... college tuition goes up. Housing goes up. Health care goes up. Energy and food go up. Anything with pricing power goes up. Wages don't, especially unskilled wages in the interior where you have the double whammy of regional labor oversupply and lower skill levels. The crunch is real and extreme. Many of the other things you mention are effects, not causes. The addiction epidemic in America's interior reminds me a lot of the alcoholism and drug addiction epidemic that followed the collapse of the USSR.

apeacox 8y ago

> This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s. there were protests, from Seattle '99 until Genova '01, where many different groups merged into a single protest agaist that kind of globalization. but after 9/11 everything almost vanished in the name of worldwide anti-terrorism.