Brexit: the bloodbath

Well Prof I’m sure you feel better for having got that off your chest.

Now how about addressing some questions where you might have more insight, such as where does this leave the Labour Party given that the vast majority of its traditional support voted against the party’s stated direction? And where does this leave Corbyn, who’s lack-lustre campaigning was possibly the decisive factor?

I’ve received several pamphlets in the past few weeks, all with the blue-and-white NHS logo prominently on the cover, as though these were official NHS communications. And with the suggestion that they will build one new hospital a week with the money they save from the EU. Too bad they won’t have anyone left to staff the hospitals.
I think this is the final (?) attack of the postwar generation on their children and grandchildren, to make sure that the benefits they enjoyed are kept for themselves alone.

@Ze K – unfortunately the UK’s manufacturing industry is largely part of global supply chains – and the reconfiguration of those chains is likely to outweigh the move in currency.

@Dipper – have you seen some figures on Labour voting patterns? I’ve only seen rough estimates, but they don’t bear out the current focus on Corbyn.

@ Metatone. I have only the stories of the referendum day, of big turn outs and large Leave votes in traditional working class areas, nothing beyond that.

I’m frankly surprised how it has all turned out. The Scottish voted to remain, and the UK voted to leave, which means Scotland will either vote to leave the UK and stay in the EU (most likely) or stay as a deeply disgruntled member of the UK. If Scotland leaves, rUK will likely be a very Tory, austerian place. And now the Labour Party is going after Corbyn and blaming Scotland, even though Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain. I don’t see that the Labour rebels have a plan at all.

The behavior of left and right wing in England appears to be terrible and focused on blaming others for their own problems. Doesn’t bode well for the future.

“So, maybe some old ones will re-open, including in Scotland, incidentally, which could affect their decision.”

Yes, and maybe they’ll be rescued by extraterrestrials.

Remember how Obama and HRC threatened that a Leave vote would put Britain at the back of line in trade talks with the US? http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/22/barack-obama-brexit-uk-back-of-queue-for-trade-talks

Trump has Britain’s back (no linky) : “A Trump Administration pledges to strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain, deepening our bonds in commerce, culture and mutual defense. The whole world is more peaceful and stable when our two countries – and our two peoples – are united together, as they will be under a Trump Administration.”

That’s a bad thing, right?

@14: Until a few weeks ago Trump was vague on what ‘Brexit’ meant. It seems someone has told him. He is quite right to applaud this win. Many of the same forces that propelled ‘Leave’ to victory have placed him where he is today, which he is shrewd enough to realize. Build those walls.

@15 “Scotland would be wiser to vote for independence and join Europe.”

I can understand why they might want to do that, but I think this might be a lot less simple than some people are making out. Certainly it wouldn’t be a formality; a newly-independent Scotland wouldn’t just automatically inherit the rUK’s discarded EU membership. And the basic economic problems of independence wouaven’t gone away since the referendum last year, and now look much worse because of the energy price crash. Presumably they’d have to move to the euro, apart from anything else. It’d probably be doable but would take a lot of organising.

I thought Corbyn would be one of those North London lefties you disparage kidneystones.

The attitude that everyone who disagrees with you is stupid and racist (I’m sorry, ‘uneducated’ and ‘xenophobic’) is a large part of why you couldn’t convince any of them to vote to stay.

You hate the kind of people who voted to stay. Surprise, surprise, they refuse to listen to the arguments of people who obviously hated them.

This analysis, discussed by Kevin Drum, makes the whole thing sadder to me:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/brexit-battle-generations

The people most wanting to leave will be least affected by it, while those who favored staying will bear the brunt. Sometimes I really think there should be a maximum voting age, but really, I just wish young people would vote more.

Is that your hostility to the masses showing?

No my disagreement with the judgment of ~50% of us (as Matt points out, mostly people my parents’ or grandparents’ ages, not mine, , and from a different part of the country to me).

If you’re going to fling mud at people, try to get it on target.

@23 One of the arguments Leave made is that if regaining sovereignty (whatever that may mean) had an economic cost, the price of ‘freedom’ was well worth paying.

@22 I think there’s some. Labour campaigned officially for Remain. It seems clear that a great number of working-class voters voted to Leave. Corbyn, at least for a time, supported an EU referendum. Most/All of the Blairites opposed the referendum, and later reversed their positions in the wake of 2015 bloodbath.

@29 That’s a generous reading of the arguments. Gove was pretty dismissive of economists arguing that Brexit would be bad for the economy – comparing them to scientists in the pay of Nazis.

Given the overwhelming preponderance of leave voters in the over 65 demographic, this vote makes a very good case for a maximum voting age. People who aren’t, demographically, expected to live long enough to have to suffer the consequences of their decisions for very long ought not be allowed to dictate to those who will.

I’ll also just put here that much of the work on quantitatively predicting social unrest points toward rapidly rising food prices as a near-certain trigger for disturbances. If the pound stays low long enough to push up food prices, expect riots in addition to the more genteel fallout.

The other potential flashpoint is what will happen when the millions of Britons and EU citizens who are currently enjoying their right to freedom of movement are forced to return home. The consequences of defacto–let’s not sugar coat this–mass deportations to ensure that everyone is on the ‘right’ side of the EU line will be an economic disaster and could easily turn into a civic crisis in several countries.

Rich at 32, but you’ve pretty consistently argued that trump supporters are driven by racism, xenophobia and nostalgia afaicr. So why is that rhetoric and analysis worthwhile in that case but not here ?

I left the UK after Grocer Heath took us in, so have watched from an interested distance. I would probably have voted Remain had I still been living in the UK. But some things continually surprise me here. A random list:

Heath took us in over the wishes of Labour, of course, and Michael Foot later put “out’ on his manifesto. This is one of many arguments where “left” and “right” orthodoxy have changed places over the years. The assumption on Brexit threads here that there is no decent left rationale for exit seems oddly ahistorical for CT.

The OP lists “The pound is tanking and the stock market too” among its signs of doom. Chris Bertram arguing that we should avoid the disapproval of global capital?

Trump, of course, is expressing pleasure. But there are many TIPP sceptics who haven’t switched their views just because Trump happens to be on what seems like the same side. One of the many unpleasant aspects of this campaign has been the argument-by-association — as if we haven’t all had taken sides with unpleasant bedfellows at some time.

I see Dipper’s characterization of Johnson as “deep down, a Remainer” (here looks like it might be on the money.

So worst case scenario the Brexit vote triggers a global recession and increases the popularity of extreme right wing parties across the developed world. Donald Trump, boosted by the weakening economy and piss poor campaign of Secretary Clinton, wins the Presidency in November. By the end of 2017 there is nothing left of our civilization but radioactive clouds of dust traveling back and forth across the Earth.

/Not so bad really. At least I won’t have to pay my mortgage.

It’s at least two years before anything changes. Cameron says he won’t start the Article 50 process, he’ll leave it to his successor. Maybe they won’t either. What are the odds the UK remains in the EU at the end of the day? 10%, 20%? Certainly not zero.

In any case, if free trade between the UK and Europe is so beneficial, presumably that’s what the outcome of the negotiations will be. Why would the rest of the EU deprive themselves of their largest market just out of spite? (And if they would, maybe that says something.) Or maybe you don’t think free trade outside the eu is possible, maybe integration is something that can’t be done halfway. But then maybe Wolfgang Munchau is right that the decision to leave was already made when the UK (under Gordon Brown) definitely decided not to join the euro. If a sort-of-in, sort-of-out position isn’t a viable outomce of the negotiations, maybe the existing one wasn’t either.

What ‘s striking me most about these post mortems is that we are being asked to believe two things. First, that international trade and financial arrangements are extremely delicate, attempts to adjust them are likely to cause them to break down catastrophically. And second, that cross-border finance and trade is something we should have lots more of.

And thank you JW for providing a little calm into these comments. Much to think about.

“Why would they make life easy for the uk? From a political perspective?”

Because their economies are already shit and hurting the UK will wound them even more?

Of course they might decide to do it anyway.

curmudgean @33 I suspect the recrossing of borders will be slow in coming. More likely that EU companies will be reluctant to hire Brits because they are uncertain of the legal status. This might also apply to renewing contracts etc. So a suspect it will be a sustained trickle, as well as fewer opportunities to work in the EU. Of course equity and currency markets usually don’t react slowly or seamlessly.

Agree w engel’s comment @22.

Not quite sure where Ze K gets the idea that a ‘low currency’ boosts employment generally. Ceteris paribus, a lower currency will/may help exports and make imports more expensive (but all other things aren’t equal right now). Also someone has already mentioned the factor of supply chains. I think the days of import-substitution industrialization are prob pretty much over. (Though overreliance on one export and importing everything else also can be a bad idea; cf. Venezuela, where it was coupled w other things to produce a real disaster/mess.)

One reason the pound has plummeted is because regulation has reduced liquidity in foreign exchange. When the Swiss National Bank broke the Euro peg last year there was a huge unparalleled instantaneous move which later unwound. Some of the move in Cable has unwound already, and it is currently at 1.38.

(Cable is the GBP/USD exchange rate, so called because the rate used to be transmitted on a sub-atlantic cable – hence “the rate on the cable”)

I’m surprised that no-one in CT has spent much time discussing the role of the EU in the election. They showed no signs at all of giving way on any aspect of the EU, and there was widespread belief that once the election was over the EU would reveal more centralisation and state-like policies and institutions.

Once again, someone has tried an “all or nothing” approach to negotiation and ended up with nothing.

I said before the vote that the Tories were trying to recast it as labours fault, and oh look the blairite rump have already joined their Tory allies in the hippy punching. I saw earlier people trying to blame the sNP as well. The two bits of the English polity who coherently voted remain being blamed for Cameron’s catastrophic stupidity… What a disaster…

When you cut someone low in education, does he not bleed? Do the low in education not have needs, desires, fears, and dignity equal to us upper middle class folks with graduate degrees and 100k/yr salaries?

@47: I’m not so optimistic about the timeline for repealing freedom of movement. The rural old people who voted for this will want to see a payoff while they’re still around to gloat, which means that they will want all the foreigners out of their villages as soon as possible. Combine this with the facts that the referendum was largely fought on immigration grounds and that freedom of movement has never been particularly popular among UK elites to begin with and it seems likely that the right will be revoked as soon as possible.

I see a problem with negotiating with the EU over divorce terms. At present, Britain has nobody in charge of negotiating. With both parties in leadership crisis (Labour) or actual vacuum (Tories), it’s going to take months at best before Britain can even start internal negotiations about external negotiations. In the meantime, the status quo remains except with the currency down by a double-digit margin and life with anticipation of Brexit. The immigrants don’t vanish, but purchasing power does.

Interesting, in the cold light of Friday’s hangover, to have a look at what Wolfgang Schäuble has felt compelled to say about it, e.g.:

Drin heißt drin – und raus heißt raus (In is in and out is out)

Guy doesn’t bend much, does he? And then there’s Juncker, of course, likening Brexit supporters to deserters in his May 20 interview with Le Monde.

I’m from the U.S., and so lack the subtlety of insight into Europe’s follies that other commenters here have in abundance, but when I read stuff like this, I’m tempted to wonder whether these supposedly wise leaders aren’t really trying to drum up the financing for a commedia dell’arte re-run of World War I.

And then, of course, we over here have got Trump, playing golf in Scotland, of all places, while congratulating the English on their insularity.

I’d be inclined to say that you can’t make this stuff up, but collectively, it seems, we have more than enough of what it takes to make any farce seem plausible.

bexley – very good question.

I guess not having free movement and unlimited immigration would have gone down quite well with many people.

Personally my dislike is more to do with the drive for a super-state. The direction is very clear with such initiatives as a European army (from the people who brought you Srebrenica), talk of tax harmonisation etc. The end result is single European state and in that scenario everything ends up in the middle – i.e. Germany. The single market in manufactured goods works well for Germany; the single market in financial services should work well for the UK but doesn’t.

As someone who worked in the City I see the Financial Transaction Tax as a deliberate attempt to cripple the UK financial services. I know we had a veto but it costs you every time you use it.

The two objections to the super state are that firstly Germany hasn’t worked out that with the structural fiscal surplus that their central role gives them they need to make fiscal transfers to elsewhere in the EU. They resist doing this resulting in a permanent downward economic spiral which has driven recession across Europe. Personally I see no future for the UK in that scenario. Secondly at best we have a peripheral role – a good place for Europe to do their cheap manufacturing and services, but not a place where power sits. Our future limited by playing second fiddle to a dysfunctional European core. I think we are better than that and leaving gives us a chance to expand and develop through engaging with the world economy.

dipper: The two objections to the super state are that firstly Germany hasn’t worked out that with the structural fiscal surplus that their central role gives them they need to make fiscal transfers to elsewhere in the EU.

They haven’t worked out the need for fiscal transfers, because, inside Germany, it is popularly understood that they have been making fiscal transfers elsewhere — to Greece in the endless series of bailouts, for example. Germans think they have made sacrifices — his own delayed retirement is the example one of my German friends gives me — for European solidarity.

dipper @ 67:

As someone who worked in the City I see the Financial Transaction Tax as a deliberate attempt to cripple the UK financial services. I know we had a veto but it costs you every time you use it.

As someone not part of the financial services, I understood the FTT as an attempt to get High Frequency Trading under control. And from my perspective HFT is basically a legal flavour of front-running, a way for traders to interpose themselves as intermediaries in transactions that would have happened anyway.

If, in fact, there is no detriment at all to leaving the EU, then the EU is finished.

If the only reason to be in the EU is fear of punishment for leaving, no wonder people want out. Seems to me people unhappy with this vote need to find a case for membership that doesn’t require catastrophe as the alternative.

Re the pound, exchange rates move around a lot. The pound lost a quarter of its value in 1992, then rose by over 30 percent in 1996-1998. Pretty hard to see effects of either on growth, employment, etc. That goes double for stock markets. And even if there is a good argument that the consequences will be more severe this time — which I have not seen — it’s a bit odd, as someone noted above, to see people on the left treating financial markets as arbiters of good policy. If in fact the foreign exchange markets, finance industry, etc. now effectively have a veto over British policy, that seems like a problem to be solved. It doesn’t seem like an argument for continuing on the path of greater economic economic integration and freer movement of finance.

JW Mason @75:

If, in fact, there is no detriment at all to leaving the EU, then the EU is finished.

If the only reason to be in the EU is fear of punishment for leaving, no wonder people want out. Seems to me people unhappy with this vote need to find a case for membership that doesn’t require catastrophe as the alternative.

One way to rephrase the original statement is if there is benefit to being a member of the EU, then the EU is finished. Losing the benefits of membership when leaving is not by itself a punishment. And if the turmoil of negotiating leaving is itself enough to cause a catastrophe, then that too should not be construed as a punishment.

(ok blockquote fail at my 77)

Dipper – the Dutch government didn’t resign over that issue, but there was an understrength Dutch battalion (about 400 men) not far away, under UN command. The VRS were under orders not to attack them, and didn’t. Dutch parliamentarians who had been looking to overthrow the government on some pretext or other made use of the horrific circumstances to argue that the government was in some curious way responsible for the killings. In fact, the Dutch were only responsible insofar as they did not carry out their mandate to disarm the Muslim troops in the town – they could hardly do so, since they were massively outnumbered. There’s a long and detailed Dutch official report that goes into this, but let’s not get sidetracked. Europe has made a mess of a lot of things, but that’s not one of them.

@33: Here in the States, the old folks have been able to ward off repeated threats to their piece of the social safety net because they vote. Consistently. Younger people do not. This isn’t always or necessarily a personal or generational failing. Voting is a habit and habits take time to develop. All the same, there are consequences to not voting (or voting only because there’s a candidate on the ballot who sends a thrill up your leg). I saw a BBC people-on-the-street interview with some young people prior to the election. Were they in favor of Remain? Oh, sure. Were they actually going to vote? Well, they couldn’t tell just yet. So it goes.

tomsk: Do you see this as a convincing belief?

I think it is b.s. But, my friend is convinced. b.s. can be convincing.

Politicians are going to tell their supporters that they are good, decent people and it is only the other people who are selfish, foolish and misguided. That’s just manipulation — necessary in form to political mobilization, though the quality of content (and the related functional consequences of governance) may vary with the quality of the politician.

People debate meaning as if it means something. You can’t stop ’em.

if the turmoil of negotiating leaving is itself enough to cause a catastrophe, then that too should not be construed as a punishment.

Sure, ok. Still if the best case for staying in is that it would be very costly to leave, then the best thing would be never to have joined.

It’s a fundamental misunderstanding that the EU is like NAFTA with more bureaucrats.

OK. But there is a substantive question about what kinds of activity should be governed by where. And there is a substantive question about what degree of integration is desirable in production and finance. You can argue that more centralized, more uniform governance and more integrated economies are always and everywhere a good thing (“ever closer union.). Or you can argue or that national governments should have some autonomy but less than they do now, or that the existing division of competences in the EU (with UK opt-outs) gets the distribution of competences just right. But you do have to make the argument. You can’t pretend there are no legitimate questions here.

RNB-

Of course. I expect if I were British I would have voted Remain for exactly that reason. But “our opponents are scary racists” only makes it more pressing to come up with a positive argument for integration. It shouldn’t be — as it seems to be here — an excuse not to bother.

As someone who worked in the City I see the Financial Transaction Tax as a deliberate attempt to cripple the UK financial services. I know we had a veto but it costs you every time you use it.

Could Britain’s future involve wild-west finance? Or more wild?

the argument still assumes that there was no benefit to joining in the first place

I’m not assuming that. What I’m saying is that no case has been made for those benefits, the arguments are entirely on the costs side. I’m also saying that insofar as there are benefits, it should be possible to negotiate a new arrangement that more or less preserves them.

I suspect that one reason people are pushing the economic catastrophe, all-or-nothing line so hard is that they realize that in the ideas of most Europeans, the benefits of the EU have not in fact been sufficient to justify creating/joining it — at least in anything like its current form — if the option existed to start over.

All I could think of this morning, as I was reading the news and people’s anguished posts on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere, was that famous first line from Kafka: “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”

The uneducated poor — why do we let vote?

For Chris and others who think that this vote was a disaster, ‘m curious: do you feel the same way about the decision not to join the euro?

Peter K @28

“’However, low interest rates don’t necessarily lead to the construction of new housing, as the US housing market amply demonstrates.’

A common mistake is to confuse historically low rates with where rates *need* to be to maintain full employment and inflation levels. The Fed has been tightening with rates being *too high* even though they are historically low. Brexit will probably mean they won’t raise rates anytime soon.

The economy has been weak. Politicians have forced fiscal austerity on the economy. There’s a trade deficit. That’s why rates are “low.” But they are not as low as they should be. Central banks hit the ZLB and have to resort to QE.

The experts’ reputations are in tatters and so yahoos spout off nonsense about monetary policy, immigration and trade, etc.”

The explanation that it’s only nominal interest rates that have been low, but the real interest rates have been ask the question if the higher interest rates exercising Chris Bertram are only nominally high. Which is to say, doesn’t explain at all. It’s not even clear whether European central bankers not raising interest rates is good, bad, indifferent or in the hands of God.

However so far as housing goes, QE doesn’t seem to have had much positive effect on housing. And it certainly hasn’t achieved a normal recovery in the overall economy either.

My remark on housing was “The price of housing seems to me to have a great deal to do with how much money there is to bid up real estate and build luxury housing. In a highly unequal economy, low cost housing on expensive land is absurd. ” It seems pretty certain that I’m supposed to be one of the yahoos nattering about monetary policy, immigration and trade, but really not seeing that. (Nor did Tom Slee, by the way.)

I guess the moral of the story is that the experts, even with their reputations (unjustly?) tattered, are still way ahead of the yahoos. It seems the awful uneducatedness of the yahoos who voted leave consists in not realizing the experts are still the experts and no one else is worth listening to.

Great one on Kafka, Corey Robin.

JW Mason @93:

What I’m saying is that no case has been made for those benefits, the arguments are entirely on the costs side. I’m also saying that insofar as there are benefits, it should be possible to negotiate a new arrangement that more or less preserves them.

As Harry notes in blame Corbyn, the Brexit campaign has lasted about 25 years. That is the background against which any case for the EU had to be made. Even so, I do think Remain could have made a better case, but it is not nearly as obvious that these Remain campaigners could have made a better case.

A large part of the benefits of EU membership have been in easier trade between members. This necessarily included a good deal of harmonization between member countries of laws affecting trade in a wide sense, to ensure products made in one member state can be sold without problems in another member state. (Minimum standards, liability, warranty, accurate labelling, …)

Finally, there is a blueprint for getting “more or less” these benefits of membership of the EU without actual membership of the EU: the European Economic Area. The catch is that membership of the EEA requires exactly the things the Brexit voters voted against: free movement of persons and contributing to the EU development funds.

So you’re arguing that it should be possible to reach for a deal that rejects the conditions that everyone else who negotiated for the same deal had to accept. Doing that would surely blow up all other EEA treaties.

Re article 50 process and new trade deals etc, this gives some idea of the political situation
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/top-eu-leader-we-want-britain-out-as-soon-as-possible

JW Mason @99:

For Chris and others who think that this vote was a disaster, ‘m curious: do you feel the same way about the decision not to join the euro?

FWIW, in retrospect it is even more clear that the decision not to join the Euro was the right one. And a good number of experts made that point at the time.

In other words, the only good that may come out of this is faster recognition that fiscal austerity is insanity. But don’t hold your breath!!

Lee @110 “Brexit makes it clear that the members of the British political scene are too inept for anyone to risk business investment there.”

So business leaders aren’t intending to sell stuff in the UK? If we end up just making all the stuff we consume that is a big plus for the UK.

And have you tried doing business in France or Germany? There’s a reason the major financial centre in the European time zone is in London and not Paris or Frankfurt and that reason isn’t going away any time soon.

bexley – I disagree – we haven’t been a counterweight, the EU commission sees us as a drag. Those Scandanavians can come and join us in a free-trade area of co-operative nations.

What I even mean by about re-embracing the rest of the world is more trade agreements with non EU countries and more co-operation with nations round the world. Some more immigration from the rest of the world too now we won’t have the European open door.

What are the “microfoundations” of xenophobia, racism, and other forms of insidious self-regard? What need is being addressed by these irrational and angry sentiments?

& can we be sure that the cosmos’ own play for status (education, career, luxury) isn’t itself another form of insidious self-regard, itself a rejection of community? Capitalist leaders say “democracy”, & they are deluded to think that the onslaught of political and economic manipulation called “marketing” is somehow inconsequential to their fate. Capitalist leaders say “shared prosperity”, but what needs to be shared is privelege, agency, and purpose.

I’m repulsed by the “leave”s, but the self-satisfied stories that many of the “remain”s tell of their moral and intellectual superiority strikes me as…well, you typically get the enemies you deserve.

The blind and senseless revolts of the lower classes is always cause for pearl clutching among the architects of modern states, but we cosmos generally refuse to look at our own blind and senseless revolt against the common good.

I’m not sure that some of the non-UK CT readers understand the extent of recent immigration in the UK. These examples are from the south-east of the UK, but where I worked in the city my team of thirty was at least two-thirds non-British. They were highly educated many with PhD’s. We often had no native UK applicants for jobs. A friend has an engineering team that has recently expanded and they are mainly from Portugal, there being no opportunities for graduates there at the moment. Another friend employs minimum wage staff in quantity for factory jobs, and they are predominantly European. I’ve had cause to see a number of doctors ,vets and dentists over the last few years and the vast majority of these are from overseas.

In many ways it is great to have such a diverse range of educated people to interact with. And it is great to be in a vibrant international country. But where are all the native Britains? Why are there so few trained medical staff coming through from the native population?

Its easy to see why so many voted against the EU. The UK that has developed recently has no need of them. There are increasingly few people from average backgrounds and from outside London in any profession or in any cultural activity. We don’t as a nation invest in the development of skills amongst the young, finding it easier to import skills from overseas. Millions of people are simply surplus to requirements for the cultural and economic life that the UK enjoys. They got their opportunity to speak yesterday, and they said “stop – what about us?”

Its easy to see why so many voted against the EU. The UK that has developed recently has no need of them. There are increasingly few people from average backgrounds and from outside London in any profession or in any cultural activity. We don’t as a nation invest in the development of skills amongst the young, finding it easier to import skills from overseas. Millions of people are simply surplus to requirements for the cultural and economic life that the UK enjoys. They got their opportunity to speak yesterday, and they said “stop – what about us?”

So how does that fit in with “Some more immigration from the rest of the world too now we won’t have the European open door.”. It doesn’t sound like the Leavers voted for that so why would it happen. Make your mind up.

some Leavers may end up being materially worse off. But what matters is not your absolute standard of living, its your relative standard of living. See

Dipper #115: “So business leaders aren’t intending to sell stuff in the UK? If we end up just making all the stuff we consume that is a big plus for the UK.”

Not sure I understand you. I was guessing about the short term, so maybe that is causing the misunderstanding.

On “selling stuff in the UK”. In the immediate short term, foreign businesses will find it more difficult because the lower pound will weaken British demand for imports. Domestic businesses won’t have that problem, but they may find it more costly to find the funds to start or expand business, if their financial investors have access to a global financial market with returns in stronger currencies.

Of course, this could adjust over a much longer period of time. My comment was about the immediate short term.

On “making all the stuff we consume”, that again is a longer term prospect. It’s not about to happen in two years or five years. It means 1. retooling the British economy, which takes time, and 2. as above, the ability of new British businesses to attract investment funds in a global financial market despite a weak pound and uncertain political leadership.

But I tend to agree that Brexit may not matter, in the global long term future. I think that the rise of robots and AI may put an end to comparative advantage, and reduce the need for trade, because anybody will be able to make anything.

It may put the economists out of business. In reality we are already capable of generating surpluses of goods and services, and we have surplus labor. But the organization and distribution is being constrained by obsolete ideas.

The basic problem underneath all of the discontent is not trade and immigration. It is that the elites really are protecting their ownership of wealth. Just flipping the US TV channels today, it looks to me like this realization is beginning to dawn in the mainstream media, or what remains of it.

The blind and senseless revolts of the lower classes are always cause for pearl clutching among the architects of modern states, but we cosmos generally refuse to look at our own blind and senseless revolt against the common good.

Wolfgang Schäuble and Jean-Claude Juncker, nevermind David Cameron and George Osborne, as agents and architects of cosmopolitan capitalism . . . hmmm . . . tell me about the common good, again, please.

“There are many young people in the UK who would love to be doctors, dentists, or nurses but cannot get on to the courses as places are heavily restricted, so they go off and do lesser jobs.”

Isn’t that a funding priority problem? How does Brexit fix that? And, how long do you do without foreign doctors until the gaps are filled.

(BTW, the UK appears to have more doctors per capita than the US does!)

Dipper @128:

There are many young people in the UK who would love to be doctors, dentists, or nurses but cannot get on to the courses as places are heavily restricted, so they go off and do lesser jobs.

[Emphasis mine]

So who’s doing the restricting, and why? Is this an EU dictate, imposed to benefit immigrants? Or did the UK government do this as part of the austerity budgets? Some other actor and/or reason?

Dipper – I think that every study that has looked at it thinks that around 50% of white collar jobs will be gone in 20 to 30 years. WHITE collars are to follow the blues into oblivion.

But the big question I have is, Why WOULDN’T you want all jobs to be destroyed?!

The idea that people should be forced to work for their daily bread is just about the stupidest idea ever. Thankfully this long historical era is drawing to a close.

If you need to live in a status hierarchy based upon individual merit, go get good at cricket. Me, I’d rather try to design a faster-than-light spaceship.

Lee A. Arnold: The basic problem underneath all of the discontent is not trade and immigration. It is that the elites really are protecting their ownership of wealth.

Their ownership of wealth and the power of domination and the claims on income and consumption that go with it.

As the advanced economies move ever further in the direction of “the rise of robots and AI ” and “anybody will be able to make anything” (using quotes to indicate that I have some quibbles about describing trends that way), many of the financial claims we call “wealth” look ever more arbitrary and socially counter-productive. IP claims in Pharma are among the most morally outrageous, because financial drones can extort millions by holding lives hostages over medicines that cost very little to make. But, really, the profits of Disney or Apple don’t look sustainable — how much will an iPhone cost in five years, ten years? how much will bandwidth cost? Why am I spending more than a few pennies to watch a movie?

Politically, the political opportunism of smash and grab is going to look better and better, if elites continue as they have, relying on wealth claims from ever higher mountains of debt. If anyone can make anything, and do it cheaply provided they don’t have to pay for the brand management or the IP, collapse of the global system doesn’t look like such a big threat.

The costs that matter in the long run are not the fictions spun out by the City of London in the wake of the computing and communications revolution, but the rising tariff charged by the natural environment, which really doesn’t want our exports and can not sustain the rate of our imports.

some Leavers may end up being materially worse off. But what matters is not your absolute standard of living, its your relative standard of living

Cutting off your nose to spite someone else’s face never sounded so reasonable

@141

Shouldn’t you be taking that argument up with L2P who was the one suggesting free movement of goods and capital but not people which is a bad combo.

bexley @ 142

L2P was rejecting a common currency, so not the free movement of capital as, say, Greece or Spain has experienced it.

And so it begins. First Brexit, the election of Trump is likely to be the next big “shock.” Who knows what else might happen in the intervening months. The global managers would do well to start cramming for the test (standardized of course) in political theology that is coming–though I have little doubt they won’t.

Puts me in the mind of Hosea chapter 8, verse 7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the stranger shall swallow it up.”

BW:

A lot can be said, and one thing that ought to be said is that the free movement of capital enforces and exacerbates inequality.

But material (in)equality is only one dimension relating to social prosperity. We overlook the psyche. The people pushing Brexit: pensioners in an age of abundance, born in ’51 for chrissake. Whence the anger and spite? I think it’s telling us something very important about who we are and what we want: a sense of common purpose, a belonging? I don’t know.

But I doubt that the impulse for racial/religious/ideological purity is a desire that can ultimately be ameliorated with a lower GINI coefficient unless that equality is rooted in something more nebulous, but nevertheless real.

Scarily appropriate again.

(Just in case: https://twitter.com/Scarfolk/status/746235542455517184/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw )

“I do think that yesterday’s vote speaks to the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalization,’

Three guesses who offered this incisive analysis and where?

Hint: US Trans-Pacific Partnership

Global Entrepreneurs’ Summit

@ 152 I suspect the only way nothing happens is if the population changes its mind decisively. Perhaps because there is a recession.

It’s going to take more than two years anyway. For starters we have two years from when article 50 is invoked but that won’t happen straight away. First there’s going to be the leadership contest. Then, I assume, there’ll be a period where the UK team prepares for negotiations. Given how intertwined we now are with the EU that’s going to take a long time.

bexley @ 145, 147

Next time, try something along the lines of, “yes, I see where I went wrong, thanks”

@ 155 what are you talking about? You started talking about free movement of capital where there is a common currency in a discussion where we are all talking about a situation where there is no common currency (hint the UK does not use the Euro) and then refuse to accept your comment is irrelevant to the discussion.

I’m a fan of dipper’ s iconoclastic and oppositional positions on the topic of the day, and genuinely hope long may they continue. But his 121 is….confusing me.
“Where have all the engineers and surgeons gone”? Firstly, to be frank, who gives a shit? The hardships suffered by the most educated classes in the richest part of the world really shouldn’t be at the top of our concerns.
But beyond that, if the young, particularly this demographic (potential engineers and surgeons) voted overwhelmingly to stay in the eu, even at the risk of it undermining their dreams of 80 hr shifts in London based investment banks, doesn’t this imply it’s not a particularly important or relevant issue? Perhaps someone could explain this to me like I’m an idiot. Is the UK producing less of specific professions because of competition from Europe? How would that work, as in how would hypothetical competition from Portuguese engineers decide a young persons life chances 10- 20 years previously (when they were doing their a levels, going to college etc)? Or are they just not being hired ? What %age of these demographics are out of work/underworked/in careers where their qualifications aren’t used? How many have emigrated (to Europe, aus, the US)? How many are working in companies that aren’t dipper’s ? Basically is there any evidence to support dipper’ s fears?
I genuinely don’t have a clue how this is a problem, or if it is how is the eu to blame?

I crossposted this with dipper’s most recent post (which admittedly hasn’t clarified much for me)

Rich Puchalsky @ 152

At the moment, the British political class seems to have accepted the verdict of the voters, even though it seems like a close vote to me. Cameron resigned promptly, just as if Parliament had voted, “no confidence”.

It is an interesting contrast to, say, France, where Hollande has been pushing thru a sweeping labor law reform, against popular opinion and without a Parliamentary majority and has threatened to make protest illegal.

@ Dipper, if the UK government opts for tax cuts and austerity, which results in the reduction of funding for medical and nursing schools, which results in native Britains being denied medical educations, which results in a shortage of medical staff, which results in an influx of immigrant doctors and nurses to fill the gap, then the role of the EU seems to me to be beneficial – they’re educating doctors and nurses and sending them to care for Britains. As for native Britains who would be doctors and nurses, the source of their problem is the UK government, not the EU.

Dipper, I just want to be sure I understand: you’re saying you voted for Brexit because you thought it would make non-poor British people poor, thus making Britain more equal, and you thought this was a good idea because of a video lecture you saw about Capuchin monkeys?

Wait, how are “flexible Labour market policies” a dream of the eurocracy in the context of UK Labour law? Afaik the general complaint is the other way, that Europe pushes too many pro worker regulations on the UK? Or am I missing something ? This might be a complaint workers in other Euro countries have, but in the UK? Unless “not an unambiguous repudiation” actually means ” in no way shape or form a repudiation” ?

Neo liberalism, the managerial class, too few home grown engineers, cctv cameras, “why won’t anyone think of the working class”,Robots, Greece …. Is it bring your hobby horse to work day?

The only thing the referendum tells us is that Cameron is done. Everything else may as well be a gigantic question mark.

I am convinced — have been for a while — that one of the key drivers for Brexit within the tory party is fear of EU money-laundering regulations.

engels@167 – ” you’re saying you voted for Brexit because you thought it would make non-poor British people poor, thus making Britain more equal”

Sounds like it – it’s hard to tell because his arguments are completely incoherent. As far as i can make out, the sentiment driving BRexit (and Trumpism here) is a confused stew of frustration at being left behind, resentment at the success of others, fear of islam & god knows what else. However, global competition, automation etc are a fait accompli. These certainly cannot be escaped by “exiting” or by blaming immigrants. He’ll learn soon enough.

Having said that, kudos to the brits for hammering the pond life at the EU.

b9n10nt: Why imagine “replacement” rather than “enhancement”?

’cause its scarier that way . . . and really who doesn’t like to imagine an apocalypse?

Larrym 06.24.16 at 3:17 pm
Here’s hoping that the generation that caused this travesty dies off quickly and miserably

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut: ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind’.

I’m curious what the commentariat here thinks of Krugman’s observation:

= = = http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/brexit-the-morning-after/

It seems clear that the European project – the whole effort to promote peace and growing political union through economic integration – is in deep, deep trouble. Brexit is probably just the beginning, as populist/separatist/xenophobic movements gain influence across the continent. Add to this the underlying weakness of the European economy, which is a prime candidate for “secular stagnation” – persistent low-grade depression driven by things like demographic decline that deters investment. Lots of people are now very pessimistic about Europe’s future, and I share their worries.

But those worries wouldn’t have gone away even if Remain had won. The big mistakes were the adoption of the euro without careful thought about how a single currency would work without a unified government; the disastrous framing of the euro crisis as a morality play brought on by irresponsible southerners; the establishment of free labor mobility among culturally diverse countries with very different income levels, without careful thought about how that would work. Brexit is mainly a symptom of those problems, and the loss of official credibility that came with them. (That credibility loss is why the euro disaster played a role in Brexit even though Britain itself had the good sense to stay out.)

At the European level, in other words, I would argue that Brexit just brings to a head an abscess that would have burst fairly soon in any case. = = =

F @ 98: “Leave was absolutely the result of uneducated, poor, and old voters.”

If that’s the case, then it ought to be an occasion for some serious soul-searching among the wealthy London elites that so many of their fellow citizens feel so alienated and left behind that they were willing to take such a drastic step. After all, Brexit did win a majority.

Naaaah. Much easier just to dismiss them as racist troglodytes and call it a day. That’ll work out just great.

Cranky Observer @ 184

I would take issue with his rhetoric about labor mobility. I detect a boys-will-be-boys attitude about the tendency of natives to be populist/separatist/xenophobic. You let in all those Turks, what do you think was gonna happen? . I would like nativism to be looked at as pertaining to the nature of modern states, not inherent in a people. I applaud the EU’s social engineering that rebukes the need for “cultural preservation” as it is conceived, by implication, in Krugman’s analysis.

@188 Interesting. Your best information is based on Google’s generic translating software, rather than any of the dedicated systems employing individual data-driven user profiles and a single course done 15 years ago.

Well, the computer world hasn’t changed much since then, other than in terms of processing power., has it.

So, that’s that.

Dipper put his or her finger on the problem at 121. Why do you think you get no English applicants for jobs requiring a Ph.D. Dipper? Where are all those British engineers ? I was briefly peripherally involved in research about workforce planning for health in the uk and I think I can answer his questions: British govt doesn’t want to spend the money on training nurses and doctors when it can suck Africa dry and get lots of Europeans. The U.K. Has been outsourcing workforce development for years so it can cut costs on education. It takes 10 years to train a doctor and 5 years to train a nurse. The U.K. Has two years now before a significant proportion of its workforce has disappeared.

When I left the uk in 2009 they were already aware of a looming shortfall in trained medical staff. I think subsequently Cameron, like the visionary he is, tried to cut the nurse training bursaries. You now have two years to find a non-immigration based alternative. How’s that going to work?

The city has a similar problem, obviously being not centrally planned it has had no say in the development of British stem graduates. If most of your skilled staff are European and your base of operations suddenly bans recruiting them, what do you do? I’d suggest two years from now it will be good to be a real estate agent in Frankfurt …

Sorry, the free movement of people—inside and outside of a country included—is a main task of the left. At least any left I would recognize as such.

@js. 06.25.16 at 1:21 am

Well, I’d say that yours is a newer understanding of a left, then. My old-fashioned view is that the chief role of a left is to use egalitarian policies so as to make sure the citizens of its country have as decent a life and as decent an income as possible – and, ideally, aren’t forced to move in order to get it elsewhere in the first place. As for the citizens of other countries, some solidarity is very nice, but as long as you have democracy, they will be primarily the concern of *their* left, which *they* vote for. One can argue that the free movement of people between countries is a good thing and should be promoted, but it’s hardly a traditional part of what a left does. In addition, it isn’t part of a real fight against the present unequal world system – if anything, it’s required by that system, which relies on the misery and failure of some societies to supply other societies with cheap labour.

Maybe you’ve heard of this?

@engels 06.25.16 at 2:20 am

That’s an interesting point, and probably has some merit, but AFAIK, the negotiations would have always involved many independent countries not part of any federation, with or without the EU, so this problem would have had to be dealt with in any case. Again, it doesn’t strike me as a decisive factor, or as a sufficient reason to maintain a supranational entity at any price.

I see js was quicker than I!

F. Foundling@195. The nation state isn’t much protection for workers against multinational companies – what you get is a race to the bottom between competing countries to get external investment. It’s bad enough within the EU (Ireland’s low corporation tax putting downward pressure on our own), but without the EU at least trying to coordinate common social standards it’s likely to be worse. There was much made by Brexiters of how the UK didn’t need the EU to ensure minimum rights for workers, but one of the core directives they want to scrap is the Working Time directive. Brexit Britain is hoping to succeed by demanding that ever more workers potentially work hours damaging to their health (rather than the current limit of a mere 48 hours/week).

@magistra 06.25.16 at 4:06 am

On labour law in a post-Brexit Britain – yes, I agree that it’s a real risk. Still, ultimately, the problem should be solvable locally, without EU help. Britons can’t just rely on, say, the Frenchmen to wage the labour struggle for them.

On the nation state – size is a factor, but producing somewhat bigger nation states or federations hardly changes the principle; ultimately, there does need to be ‘inter-national’ coordination on this. More importantly, in the case of the French reform, in the TTIP negotiations as well as many other cases, the Eurocracy has shown that it, to say the least, can’t be counted on to maintain high standards and to prevent a race to the bottom. I can only hope that it can still be forced to come to its senses.

A big thanks to Colin Danby for saying what needs to be said.

(I’ll try to come up with a longer comment tomorrow. But in the meantime, F. Foundling may (a) consider walking back “the main task of a Left is not things like maximising the free movement of people into and out of the country” and “As for the citizens of other countries, some solidarity is very nice, but as long as you have democracy, they will be primarily the concern of *their* left, which *they* vote for,” and (b) check out The Civil War in France. It’s quite good.)

@js. 06.25.16 at 5:38 am

> But in the meantime, F. Foundling may (a) consider walking back “the main task of a Left is not things like maximising the free movement of people into and out of the country” and “As for the citizens of other countries, some solidarity is very nice, but as long as you have democracy, they will be primarily the concern of *their* left, which *they* vote for,”

The first quote I see no reason to retract at the moment. As for the second one – well, yes, it was unfortunately phrased and ended up sounding cynical and coyly dismissive of solidarity (to some extent confusing real-life, dirty-yet-efficient mid-20th century social democracy – not the 1st International – with an ideal left), but the fact remains that some compartmentalisation is inevitable in practice, and I’m afraid that solidarity does have some limits. People are neither omnipotent nor saints. So, I think the ‘primarily’ bit remains factually correct.

>(b) check out The Civil War in France. It’s quite good.)

Obviously just the title of a work of that size can’t be considered a reference. I can’t quite exclude the possibility that the work contains something that you interpret as a call for the free movement of labour on some page – I assume it could have escapted my attnetion when I last read it. If you’re trying to make the point that there should be solidarity with any Commune that happens to arise in any country, well, I have no objections to that.

Colin Danby 06.25.16 at 5:01 am
@203: I’m not expert on this history, but I think you’ll find there was a much laxer legal regime re migration in Europe in the 19th century, which is to say the question of “free movement of labour” didn’t arise as it does today.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/games/teachers-corner/history-passports.asp

Within 100 years of Louis XIV’s reign, almost every country in Europe had set up a system to issue passports. Besides needing passports from their own countries, travellers also had to have visas issued by the countries they wanted to visit, much as we have travel visas today.

The rising popularity of rail travel in the mid-19th century led to an explosion of tourism throughout Europe and caused a complete breakdown in the European passport and visa system. In answer to the crisis, France abolished passports and visas in 1861. Other European countries followed suit, and by 1914, passport requirements had been eliminated practically everywhere in Europe. However, World War I brought renewed concerns for international security, and passports and visas were again required, as a “temporary” measure.

(First time I’ve tried using blockquote tags here, hoping it works.)

1 The EU is a systematically flawed entity.
2 Some motivations for the leave campaign were repugnant.
3 The UK includes the City of London tax evasion financial regime which causes massive harm on a global scale.
Very hard to say if the three bads 123 will generate more or less net harm after Brexit or not.

The EU is an advanced cooperative project among capitalists (industrial, commercial and financial) to defend capital against social democratic illusions and get a better deal with the US. Being a thoroughly capitalist cooperative project, it is highly stratified, functioning in many respects as the Fourth Reich. No doubt the modern leftists believe it to be more like the Second Reich than the Third. If the Second Reich was good enough for Lassalle, Bebel and W. Liebknecht, good enough for humanity today, is the reasoning maybe. But, if Brad DeLong’s pro-imperialist, counterrevolutionary mother thinks this is like the opposite, perhaps it is a Good Thing after all?

As for global warming, the whole point of an entity committed to the preservation of capitalism is to ensure the determination of capital investment by the market, not “planner preferences,” as Cosma Shalizi so disingenuously put it. (And he won an internet prize for that, so it must be smart!) There are no reforms that will make the free market in capital safe for the environment, much less humanity. Capitalists do no make rational decisions, they make market decisions about maximizing profit in an anarchy of production where they cannot discount the future.

As for F. Foundling’s vision of a world of socialist nations that magically appears out of nowhere to replace nonexistent imperialism? Didn’t work for Gorbachev. Empires are overthrown, they don’t just disappear. The verdicts of the Second World War will only be reversed by violence. The Gorbachevs, Yeltsins and Putins have undone the Soviet victory. The other victor, the US, remains. The ambiguous victory of China is matched by its ambiguous leadership, which is assiduously undermining the nation in a (thus far) vain effort for the magic of capitalism to make them rich enough to be a secure ruling class. Unfortunately for them, capitalism isn’t cooperating and keeps needing new assistance from expropriation of public property and attacks on the people at large.

As for larger goals, like dealing with the changes in global climate or eliminating war? The nation state, the class defender of capitalist property, will never be the vehicle. Nations as social reality may be like individuality, impossible to abolish. But nothing says they need to have the right to wage war or to poison the biosphere. Whatever form world administration of global affairs in the general interests of humanity takes, the Foundlings and the Lupitas are opposed to it as violating the rights of nations to sovereignty.

Tony Blair in today’s NYT:

“Immigrants were described as a bunch of scroungers coming to grab Britons’ jobs and benefits when, in reality, the recent migrants from Eastern Europe contribute far more in taxes than they take in welfare payments. And besides, immigration to Britain from outside the European Union will not be affected by the referendum decision.”

Well when Proposition 187 against public benefits for undocumented workers passed in California, Governor Pete Wilson and his supporters had made false claims about how much undocumented workers were costing the State. It took a while for the public to see through the lies, but the result of this demagogic campaign may prove in the long run to be the marginalization of the Republican Party in California. Only two Democrats are running for the Senate seat in this year’s election.
There are plenty of benefits from a country attracting both skilled and unskilled labor: higher quality services, start up energy (probably up to 40% of the start ups in Silicon Valley have immigrants among their founders), investments that otherwise would not be made domestically due to labor shortages (the UK unemployment rate is relatively low), creation of demand that induces investment, trade linkages with the home countries of the immigrants, cheaper goods and services, etc.
It is of course possible that the obvious benefits of immigration are difficult to see for people overrun by nativism and even racism.

Far exceeds in terms of demagogy. Sorry for typo.

Faustusnotes@191: you would be completely right about the UK supply of immigrant doctors, nurses, IT people and so forth drying up in two years, if it were the policy of anybody on the Leave side to ban all immigration as soon as the UK leaves the EU. As far as I can tell, their policy is to restrict immigration to those with useful skills, which would presumably include doctors, etc. Am I wrong?

This was in the OP:”And then the horrible lying politics of the whole campaign, with Leave claiming that money saved on the EU would be diverted to the NHS (a commitment Farage repudiated within hours of the result).”

their policy is to restrict immigration to those with useful skills

And people with a useful skills from all over the world are going to be queueing up for the chance to be a second-class citizen in a country where they’re not wanted with a nationalist government and a crashing economy…

Apologies, link above is broken. Here it is again.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldeucom/138/138.pdf

Reports make it sound like the anti immigrant incidents are already getting uglier.

Finding lots more reports from different social media that street incidents of racism, yelling at immigrants with children, etc., are on the rise.

Another venerable old publication, Scientific American, blogs that this could do real damage to UK also by deterring scientific researchers from living and working there.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/brexit-could-do-real-damage-to-u-k-science/?WT.mc_id=SA_TW_POLE_BLOG

okay, roger @ 241, back to the OP

” to be replaced by a hard right Tory administration under the leadership of Gove, May or the Trumpesque clown Johnson”

It is quite likely that Boris and Gove will be a significant part of the new government, however the conservatives have a narrow majority and many MP’s who were Remainers and who are centrist. Moreover the manifesto they fought on has not changed. The Lords has already amended government bills. I believe the convention is that the Lords should not vote down legislation that was in the manifesto but may vote against legislation that wasn’t.

I would guess that the rest of this parliament will be preoccupied with the EU, so I don’t think we are going to see a right-wards swing from the government compared to current policies.

Roger – does this commentary on the unwashed in the US still apply?

@Dipper

I’ve also worked in ‘working class’ jobs in my lifetime, and would be in general agreement with your observations. The And/But – as Newsnight reported prior to the referendum two of the three biggest stories to ‘break through’ with the public were the ‘we’ll spend that £350 mln on the NHS instead!’ claim, and the ‘Turkey is about to join the EU and flood us with migrants’ claim. Both were transparent, obvious lies that were thoroughly debunked roughly five minutes after they were made, and for weeks afterwards.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12029786/brexit-uk-eu-immigration-xenophobia

Of course the idiom of “the unwashed masses” is stereotypical. Can we ignore, however, the resounding similarities between the unprecedented support in the US for the first-class buffoon and the UK vote on Brexit? Aren’t the two phenomena strikingly alike in that they’re both hopelessly reactionary, motivated by, what some commentators have called, incoherent anger?

Which raises another interesting question, I daresay. What exactly are the differences in the educational systems in the UK and in the US, given that both have managed to produce this kind of electorate.

This is the 21st century folks, let’s not forget that!

@ Daragh

firstly, for me it’s a long game. Its about a future working as an outgoing independent nation working co-operatively across the globe rather than being NW EU offshore administrative region.

Secondly, we haven’t seen the economic costs yet. The FTSE didn’t have a significant move. The pound dropped but that’s what free-floating exchange rates do. We benefited enormously in the early 90’s from a drop in the pound so could benefit again. There were no significant moves in interest rates and liquidity was maintained.

The slightly more insidious development was the drop in our credit rating. That has consequences over a longer term if not reversed.

The issues of inward investment are significant and much well depend on the way the government handles EU negotiations and also tackles talks with other nations. The key here is that we are net importers, so we should be able to drive some reasonable bargains.

Count de Money: The people are revolting.

King: They certainly are. They stink on ice.

#251

Well, what you say reminds me of the “Middlemarch” BBC series, which was quite refreshing in showing how people voted their personal, local interests. But there was logic and coherence to their vote back then. Why don’t we have this here and now? Are you saying we have regressed?

Is this an attack on the “working class”? I hope not, but if the working class in both the US and the UK has deteriorated to the point of abandoning the kind of worldwide solidarity it had been attributed, quite rightly, by Marx and other writers, then perhaps it’s high time for us to change our definitions.

Roger, the above wasn’t in reply to you (I’ve only seen your comment). Was more just general snark !

World-wide solidarity and a vulgar marxism was promoted by charismatic trade union activists, on the shop floors of my youth. That has all gone. Workers exist inside the tension between: diversity policies in the workplace, and a print media that is constantly pouring scorn on “PC”. Worst than that though is the emergence of new autodidactic activists who I imagine must resemble, somewhat, their ranter and leveller forebears who found confirmation of their political epiphanies in the King James Bible. The new roundheads do not realise they are nazis when spreading Facebook memes about Rothschilds, illuminati, and other national socialist ideology. As I say, they would be profoundly shocked to think of themselves as nazis. In that respect they resemble gays who do not realise they are gay.

@260, JB:

Am trying to understand the gist, Jim.

Are you suggesting the general electorate has been duped by the class of political opportunists?

From Glenn Greenwald – useful device for classifying pretty much everyone here.

Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting one’s own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility.

It’s not an attack on the “working class” to note this , it’s an unfortunate, more general flaw of humanity

It’s a feature of representative democracy.

tony lynch fails to link to the source of the quote. It’s from here. If the comment is applied to “media reaction” rather than, kind of stupidly, to people here, then it makes a lot more sense. I agree with most of the article.

There’s an image from CT in the article, parenthetically.

What about politicians who both “foster environments where a huge portion of the population is ripe for lashing out” and then “help them lash out”, Sebastian.
Stupid and evil ?

Stephen @227, I assume the uk won’t send current workers back and will scramble to give them visas, but that is only a temporary solution for several reasons. The main one is that people will lave the uk naturally and where previously those people would have been replaced by others from the Eu now they won’t be, and will need to come from elsewhere. Capacity in many countries is already constrained so it’s unlikely they will make up the shortfall, and in order to make it up the nhs will need to make working there more attractive at the same time as funding is (further) drying up and workforce declining. This all comes at a a time that junior doctors are striking over working conditions that are primarily related to staffing problems.

This is even worse for small financial services companies. At the moment British companies do t need to sponsor visas since they can get eu staff easily- most jobs in smes come with a disclaimer that you won’t get visa support, because the company can rely on the free movement of labour. Have you ever dealt with visa issues in the uk? I have, personally and through colleagues and students I send there and I can tell you it is a big burden on a sme to have to recruit all its staff this way. But the reality is that capacity is t the outside the eu. To get those staff from outside the eu those business will need to compete on the international migration market with countries like oz and Canada that offer not just good salaries but a decent quality of life.

And that’s without considering the new rules the country has imposed on eg bringing in spouses, and having to prove the job can’t be given to a local. I expect given this that a lot of smes in the finance industry will simply move to the continent, if they possibly can.

“David Blanchflower, an economics professor at Dartmouth University and a former policymaker at the Bank of England, says average weekly pay in the U.K., adjusted for inflation, remains 7 percent below its most recent peak, reached in 2008.Stark regional differences are also evident in both countries. London has boomed in recent years along with its thriving financial sector, and home prices in the city have soared. By contrast, steel plants and coal mines have closed in Northern England and Wales.”

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article85948602.html#storylink=cpy

Brexit is a rebellion against the survival of the fittest social Darwinist class in London and other centers of self-interested enlightenment as it is a rejection of the EU.

Income and opportunity inequality matter. Who knew?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/meet-the-75-young-people-who-voted-to-remain-in-eu

@ 275 For life!!!

“You don’t stand a chance!!”

That’s a great way to prepare young people for the challenges ahead. What percentage, btw, of the 18-24 year-olds, do you think stand a chance right now of ever purchasing their own home?

One of changes I’d like to see is more public/private housing built with the right to buy for lower-income families. That’s easier to to do and to sell to the public without EU red tape.

The British left has pretty much abandoned the lower orders. These folks will either be embraced as equals (don’t hold your breath on that count), or working-class voters are going to go UKIP, a much more likely development given the disdain and contempt for their concerns so clearly on display here and on the larger political stage.

I predict more of the same, only worse.

Novokant,

A generation is fucked for life because of Brexit? That’s gotta be over-the-top rhetoric, right? People are incredibly resilient and capable of finding joy meaning and perseverance in life. Even to a degree when they are, as a people, subject to decades of acute trauma and deprivation. & that, to say the least, hasn’t happened here.

So now that we’re keeping it real, how do we talk about “being fucked” in the “first-world-problems sense?”

Nationalist reactionaries are the ones who are fucked for life, in as much as their hallucinatory fixations (“my country”, “my job”) that engender anger, spite, and angst blind them to sources of emotional and material abundance in their midst.

Neoliberals are the ones who are fucked for life, in as much as their hallucinatory fixations (“economic freedom”, “free markets”) that engender arrogance, envy, and scorn blind them to their own communal responsibilities.

The kids that votes Stay? They’re gonna be alright.

Everyone is already fucked because “history is a nightmare from which [we] are trying to wake up”.

lathrop @277

The short answer to your question is this: if Parliament decided to disregard the referendum decision, there is no mechanism to compel its compliance; that is, no legal or constitutional mechanism.

The practical question, however, is whether it’s politically feasible for the referendum decision to be disregarded: that seems unlikely to me.

@ magistra – 284. That’s a big post so I’ll just take one item “being based in a country that is obviously hostile to immigrants”

Britain is not hostile to immigrants. The vast majority of Brits are open to people from different cultures. Even our right-wing nativist party is multi-cultural. That’s why so many have come to the UK rather than go to other European countries where they have had a less favourable reception.

Brand Britain: It’s clearly far too soon to make any definitive pronouncements. One of the most attractive features of British life is that Britain is, like France other nations, a unique nation. Moaning about the weather, etc. is an essential feature of British life, so long may it continue. So, btw, is ‘keep calm and carry-on.’

A number of people I know in Asia refuse to travel to France. Tourism has been hammered over the last year and the ‘expressions’ of unhappiness with the current government aren’t doing much to dispel the impression. I was in France during the attack in Brussels. The violence of the unrest in Paris was of more concern to the university students I met then. (Unhappy workers had set fire to one of the college buildings.)

All eyes really are on Britain. I can’t see how it is in anyone’s interest to do anything but put the best foot forward. Brand Britain really is an extremely strong selling point in terms of consumer products, especially bespoke clothes, music, theater, the arts, and culture.Factor in the multi-ethnic cosmopolitan changes that have occurred over the last two decade and a weaker pound and the UK becomes an excellent site for travel, or study – just as Australia is now.

The influx of peoples from Asia has generally been extremely positive and I very much hope that we’ll see the successful contributions immigrants make to Britain promoted at all times.

UKIP is all about law and order and its long past time that the right is forced to take full responsibility for reigning in the yobs. That’s a part of British culture that we can well do without.

Ditto defacement of public property, over-the-top displays of public alcohol abuse and other habits that make Britain a less than desirable place to invest-in and visit. Britain is home to the English language, Shakespeare, Austin, and Thatcher – a woman widely reviled by many here, no doubt, but an international feminist icon nonetheless.

I can easily muster a million reasons why 2016 is a great time to visit, work, and study in Britain. Building Britain is going to take considerable effort, vision, and a willingness to work with others unthinkable as that may be to some.

Get the finger out, find something nice to say about someone from another ‘tribe’, and get on with it. The world is watching and waiting to see what you lot are really made of.

Really.

Ze K@290: see Open Europe on Swiss migration:

The EU-Swiss free movement treaty is linked to agreements on technical barriers to trade, public procurement, agriculture, transport, civil aviation, and research by a so-called ‘guillotine clause’. This means they can only take effect together, and if one of the agreements is terminated the other six would cease to apply.

In theory, Switzerland can unilaterally impose the quotas. However, this is likely to provoke retaliation from the EU – which could result in reduced market access to the EU for Swiss firms.

.

If the UK had been asked to vote on whether they wanted to trade reduced market access to the EU in return for more control in immigration, I might not have agreed with the outcome, but I would have respected the process. But the voters weren’t told that by the Outers. They were told they could have their cake and eat it, and unfortunately too many of them believed it.

Dipper the uk absolutely is hostile to migrants and the nativist party is not genuinely multicultural at all. This kind of blindness to Britain’s real flaws among leftists makes me so angry, because it’s a product of either willful ignorance or a complete lack of any kind of background in poor communities in the uk or both. It’s absolutely unproductive.

Not only is Britain officially legally hostile to migrants through such hints as the financial barriers to spouse migration and the onerous visa process, it is also officially culturally hostile through such things as that godawful van driving around telling migrants to go home, and the official policy platform of the ruling party to cut net migration to zero. Maybe you don’t get out of the cities much and into ukip heartland but if you do you will see that the “breaking point” poster is hardly novel in their line of propaganda, and if you bother to peruse any news from around the elections you will find multiple ukip candidates being forced out of their nomination because of absolutely awful things they have said in the past. Far age himself said he would be uncomfortable living next to a Bulgarian and another if their candidates referred to non-white voters as “nig Nogs”. The daily mail and sun are full of this worst kinds of this trash and in case you haven’t noticed the country just went through a very nasty referendum in which racist fears were stoked by one side and a pro-eu candidate was murdered for being a traitor. The party she died for is now disgracefully complaining that their leader made a big mistake by saying he is in favor of free movement. The vote count was barely finished before the mail was saying brexit would make it easier for migrants to get through the channel tunnel because of the perfidious French.

Really to say these kinds of things about the uk you really need to be in deep denial about a culture that is steeped in this stuff. I’m not saying it’s the worst or everyone agrees or anything but if the uk left is going to have any future they need to come to terms with this!!

Young people on the EU referendum: ‘It is the end of one world, of the world as we know it’

Having overwhelmingly voted to remain, many feel betrayed by an older generation who turned their backs on Europe but who will not be around to see the damage wreaked

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/young-people-vote-anger

also, what magistra said

(and comparing Switzerland to the UK is just retarded)

engels 06.26.16 at 11:18 am

I would like to know whether there is any possibility — likelihood is a separate question (and interesting!) — that Parliament could decide not to follow through with the indicated action

A good possibility

The article linked to takes the same view I took in an earlier comment: possible but not likely.

I hate the Blairites as much as the next guy and think that Corbyn has some valid points regarding EU reform. But as a politician he has failed miserably: you need someone like Brown to inject some passion and get out the vote – Corbyn’s appeared like some racist father in law who has no choice but to make nice with the new non-white family member. Or someone praising the pleasures of a root canal or a rectal endoscopy.

The guardian’s round up of racist incidents after the vote: http://gu.com/p/4myj3?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other.

But no, brexit wasn’t about immigration or racism…

I think that it’s quite likely that people are going to vote over and over until they get the result that elites want, then the votes will stop. The main question is which elites get to be more in control of this process.

The neoliberal / international elite would rather that the UK stay in the EU. The conservative / nationalist local elite would have Brexit. The left position appears to be that as usual neoliberalism is the lesser evil.

“If elites are on both sides of the issue, doesn’t that make elites more or less irrelevant to the issue? What’s the third choice, other than ‘don’t vote, that will show them!’?”

Yes, and it’s looking like the eu “neo liberal” elite aren’t overly concerned about what the UK decides to do next. The UK “nationalist elite” are in a lot if ways more neo liberal (if neo liberal means commited to cutting taxes, public funding, Labour protections etc) than the European/domestic pro eu/internationalist elite. So I don’t really see how far any of this goes.
Also, the demands for a ‘re run of the ref are coming from things like mass public petitions, so again, how much does a simple tale of elites at war tell us.

Ronan(rf): “how much does a simple tale of elites at war tell us.”

It’s not simple, necessarily, but this is a non-binding referendum with a whole lot of different ways to either push it through, ignore it, or throw up additional hoops through which the process has to pass. Elites are in control of this process, more or less. So they choose whether and how the vote translates into actual change.

As for the question of who is more neoliberal if neoliberalism means cutting everything, that’s Bruce Wilder left neoliberalism vs right neoliberalism territory. I prefer to talk about neoliberalism vs conservatism. However you like to phrase it, both “sides” have the same basic economics: neoliberals serve it up with internationalism, conservatives serve it up with xenophobia. The internationalism vs xenophobia part does make a difference and I’m not suggesting that both sides are basically the same.

Hidari: I was referring to Brown’s performance while promoting Remain, which was convincing – you got the feeling he actually meant it – as opposed to Corbyn, who was at best more like “yeah, whatever”, which is not really good enough in the face of such a historical decision that will define our world for decades to come.

JeffreyG @ 316 [Mark Blyth Athens interview on YouTube]

Mark Blyth has a real gift for narrating economics. It may be interesting to notice what he’s doing: he’s anchoring everything he says in well-grounded analysis of actual economic mechanisms. The true meaning of policy, for him, is attached to a functional analysis of the economy and its institutional mechanisms.

Even while conceding that some important political figures may believe in austerity with sincere faith, he says European austerity is the by-product of the policy of bank rescue and the unwillingness of anyone to own the policy of bank rescue.

They ask him about Brexit. He doesn’t talk about immigration. He talks about Brexit as an opening to break the Euro.

They ask him about Greece and SYRIZA and he tells his Greek interviewers, Greece needs a business model, needs to do something about the Greek culture’s contempt and distrust for the state. Which is actually kind of useful information.

I don’t know how much anyone listening to Blyth, who talks a rapid pace, could hear and retain.

Cramming as much as he does into his talk, he leaves things out. I would have referenced the looting operation underway: the beauty of neoliberalism is that other people will show up with a business model for Greece and they have. What is the implication of selling the Port or selling electric utilities or selling the beaches? But, of course, he cannot cover every thing in a short, extemporaneous discussion with people ill-prepared to ask the right questions or to work with his rapid-fire answers.

Lee A. Arnold @ 321: the basic problem everywhere is that people think that money has to clear across the ENTIRE economic system, i.e. that all credits and debits have to cancel out.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by “have to cancel out”. It is widely understood that financial intermediaries have to have a capital cushion, that Central Banks have to backstop the financial system with Lender-0f-Last-Resort functions.

Upon initiation, debits and credits balance because they are matched entries in a double-entry accounting system. But, they are initiated with expectations that are certain to be disappointed, so it is understood that adjustments will be made and risks borne. The distribution of those contingent risks are motivating, and the resolution is governance.

Am I missing something, or just getting ahead of you?

I agree with almost everything in the Mark Blyth video. It’s kind of amusing how every so often someone here will accuse me of just making up things ad hoc when these ideas are in common currency.

The part that I didn’t agree with was “Greece needs a business plan.” Countries don’t have business plans: cultures don’t have business plans. He brings up Israel as a counterexample and talks about how they created tech centers, but they were able to do that because (among other reasons) they had social solidarity, and they had that because their neighbors hate them and they have a religious/cultural reason for existing.

But I think that the business plan language is just a relic of economic thinking. I tend to think more in terms of social movements, so I say something pretty much equivalent when I write that people need a theory. What’s the basic idea that people are going to come together around? I think that Greek history makes coming together around their state an almost impossible thing, and that’s a big contributor to why Syria’s bid failed.

RP @ 317: I prefer to talk about neoliberalism vs conservatism.

Aren’t there different flavors of conservatism involved?

My right neoliberalism v left neoliberalism has always been based on the emergence of a narrow discourse anchored on the right by right-libertarian conservatives exemplified by Milton Friedman and his Chicago school heirs, not conservatism in its full breadth.

A second point is that “neoliberalism” is a kind of “fake” ideology, deliberately synthesized as a cover story. I am not sure anyone is a neoliberal, who isn’t paid to model neoliberalism in the political media. Milton Friedman et alia created a narrative that apologized for a policy agenda of reactionary, often authoritarian desiderata while denying any authoritarian intent — not just denying it, but adopting a rhetoric of freedom and choice. Charles Peters et alia did much the same, claiming the aegis of progressive intent and values for reactionary policy. Then, what became right and left neoliberalism figured out that they could legitimate each others’ views, policy projects and status, by arguing with each other almost exclusively. Their treatment of their respective flanks was not symmetrical: the left neoliberals had to hippy-punch to keep their street cred, while the right-neoliberals had to patronize, quiet and condescend to goldbugs, isolationists, christian dominionists and other crazies in their right milieu.

In British politics, a more organic right and left have broken the surface, and the neoliberals will work their magic to make those disappear. Corbyn isn’t a leader, because he was not a sufficiently fanatical advocate for the EU, you see. On the left, neoliberals will demand that Labour go all in for Remain, which looks to me to be electoral suicide on its surface, but it is critical for neoliberalism to insist otherwise.

I don’t know that I am sympathetic enough with Tories to understand Tory politics, though I understand that UKIP has been eroding the Labour base in a strategically important way, even as it has set up a fracture among the Tory elite about how to assemble an electoral coalition. Like many conservative parties, the elite leadership tends to be people oriented to social and economic dominance and much of the voting followership, the easily demagogued. Racism and resentment are tools of the trade that logically and historically precede any neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism simply doesn’t present an effective tool to those who would practice certain forms of demagoguery, even though it works fine for the more cosmopolitan and prosperous Tory constituencies among the professional classes, where racism is a mere condiment.

J-D @ 215 was talking from admitted ignorance about there being “a much laxer legal regime re migration in Europe in the 19th century”. But, the legacy of Empire was written into the landscape in the former Yugoslavia.

Bruce Wilder #324: “It is widely understood… that Central Banks have to backstop the financial system with Lender-of-Last-Resort functions.”

I doubt that it is widely understood. Otherwise most people wouldn’t fear money printing, and they would also understand that government debt, which is the same process on the fiscal side, is not a danger at all. And indeed most people would also understand that these functions can be combined, i.e. that the monetary authority can hold the fiscal debt until maturity, and then throw it into the trash (which is more or less what is quietly being done at the present).

Faustusnotes@299: “that godawful van driving around telling migrants to go home”
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t that addressed to illegal immigrants? Bit of a difference, if so.

“the official policy platform of the ruling party to cut net migration to zero.” I missed that. Who said it, and when?

“a pro-eu candidate was murdered for being a traitor.” By a Scotsman with very serious mental health problems. Does that make a difference?

Relax, everybody.

Word has it they have just discovered a vault in California containing ten million uncounted provisional ballots for the EU referendum. If they’re mostly from Scotland and London, that ought to be enough to turn the tide.

Rich P: “It’s not simple, necessarily, but this is a non-binding referendum with a whole lot of different ways to either push it through, ignore it, or throw up additional hoops through which the process has to pass. Elites are in control of this process, more or less. So they choose whether and how the vote translates into actual change.”

Again, if elites are on both sides of this issue, then ‘elites are in control of this process’ isn’t helpful analysis. Who is the ‘they’ that chooses, the Tory elites who want Brexit, or the Tory elites who wanted the issue but not the actuality, or the Tory elites who never wanted it at all? Those are all different elites, who want different things, and none off them are in control.

Bruce Wilder #336 “‘I don’t fear money printing’ regardless of circumstances isn’t sensible.”

We have plenty of theory and evidence that money printing is only dangerous in certain circumstances. But it hardly matters. Most people don’t believe it is ever benign, simply because of the psychological necessity of believing that money is hard, when you go to the store and buy something. This is the real reason that “the value of a fiat money and the integrity of the payments system must be managed”, as you wrote. The system could work in other ways but it would just need a different individual psychology. Which may well happen — I don’t think that our present psychology is an eternal manifestation nor that human nature is unchanging. One big reason I’m not a political conservative.

J-D I made no admission of ignorance

Yes, I see I should have attributed the remarks to Colin Danby. My bad.

Much of Europe and its periphery was in the 19th century and before dominated by multi-ethnic Empires and small, mostly dependent principalities, and not nation-states. Migration within Europe was controlled for the purposes of these Empires, with tragic consequences in the 20th century. From some European places, overpopulation, poverty and the threat of war, revolution and famine drove out-migration to other continents at various times and at various, sometimes staggering rates.

The arcana of the modern passport and 20th century border control, however interesting as trivia, was almost entirely irrelevant to these 19th century and earlier patterns and practices. The details of Canada’s early practice as a dominion of a European Empire on its single border with its single neighbor on a different continent, however, were fascinating.

Another loss from Brexit
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/25/the-people-who-will-suffer-the-most-severe-costs-from-brexit-dont-live-in-the-u-k/
h/t Tyler Cowen

Ah. Abuse.

Rich Puchalsky 06.26.16 at 7:16 pm #326

Rich,
I find your commentary very astute:

(a) Countries/cultures don’t have business plans
(b)This kind of language is just a relic of economic thinking (i.e., compartmentalized thinking)
(c) I’d like to think more in terms of social movements – we need a (social/geopolitical) theory.

I’d like to offer a twist to the discussion thus far. There has been a lot of talk here about “competing elites,” each with its own agenda, antagonists and protagonists, etc. I don’t find this turn of discussion particularly fruitful, in that most of the differences between political parties/elites/etc is just convenient fiction, and the aim is to distract.

What I do find, however, of immense significance is the growing disparity/separation of elites from the working class, if only because in the post-industrial economies, the very concept of working class is quickly becoming obsolete. In the US, this separation had become more and more pronounced and evident with the Clinton presidency, whereby the democratic party had become more and more identified with and geared to represent the interests of the young professional class – e.g. the Wall Street crowd. Now, that’s a major structural change.

In the UK, I suggest this kind of break was more difficult to administer, mostly because of the traditional role played by the Labor Party in the UK politics. But make no mistake about it — the UK Labor party is becoming more and more irrelevant.

Any thoughts?

whereby the democratic party had become more and more identified with and geared to represent the interests of the young professional class

Lawyers, doctors, basically advanced degrees…Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal is popular right now

if only because in the post-industrial economies, the very concept of working class is quickly becoming obsolete. working class, hell, the concept of work is becoming obsolete

I findMacKenzie Wark’s blog useful for keeping in touch with some bleeding edge thought. Linked article is an extended review of Angela McRobbie’s new book Be Creative. Names linked within include Richard Sennett, Bifo Berardi, Mazzeratto, Chiappelo and Boltanski, Ranciere, Paul Willis, Raymond Williams

“There she finds enthusiastic career girls, performing elaborate body rituals that are coded by a kind of post-feminist masquerade. They perform so-called immaterial labor and emotional labor, or what McRobbie calls “passionate work.” (89) They don’t entirely disavow class or ethnicity or community. They just see a narrow path to a more passionate life that involves some compromises. Normative femininity is a way to cover over traditional working class traits that may be disabling in the workplace. Feminism opened up a path of opportunity but one now reclaimed by a more traditional-seeming code of femininity.

Compared it to Italian workerist thinkers, where a rather masculinist approach to politics remained standard, McRobbie’s cultural studies approach opens up some interesting questions were labor and gender combine. By contrast to the ‘Bologna school’, the Birmingham school moved from the factory floor to everyday life and uncoupled different kinds of struggle. McRobbie: “without a concept of ‘culture,’ the idea of ‘the street’ can only connote a weaker space which is not the shop-floor and hence not primarily an expected location for class politics. In this thinking the idea of the factory floor still takes precedence even when the workforce is in flight from it.” (95) Where the workerists spoke of the social factory; cultural studies might speak of the social kitchen. A change of metaphor here might alter how we think of what became of both labor and culture in the era of the so-called creative industries.

The workerists still treat the classic class antagonism of capital and labor as central, whereas the culturalists treated the political and cultural levels of the social formation as equally substantive.”

Anarcissie, bob mcmanus, Richard Puchalsky:

See a June 22 clip from Democracy Now! interviewing Thomas Frank re: his latest Listen, Liberal book, as per #352. (The initial segment of the clip provides the requisite context.)

Notice the new kind of vocabulary that’s being employed by political and social theorists both in the US and on the Continent to characterize the nature of “work” by the young urban professionals.

Richard: the “Wall Street crowd” I spoke of earlier doesn’t pre-empty the class of people I had in mind, as the second link in bob mcmanus’s comment makes it abundantly clear.

Jim Buck@264: you believe that Ranters and Levellers found confirmation of their political epiphanies in the King James Bible. I know a little about C17 politico-religious beliefs, and find your interpretation entirely original. Could you expound, please?

You would best read this cheap wonderful book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Bible-Seventeenth-century-Revolution-17th-century-England/dp/0140159908

The neo-Levellers I meet on Facebook but also in the meat, are concerned now with the apocalyptic levelling of opinion e.g ” So you read a lot of books at Uni? But did you read David Icke? No? There you go! You’ve got a closed mind! Case closed.”

Hobbes of course addressed a similar situation when writing Leviathan.

@357 –There is a category of people who have to trade their labor or their labor power or their time for money, in order to make a living. What do you want to call them?

@357

Rich,

Granted, Frank’s a/c is rather simplistic, and I’m in agreement with most of what you say. But we’ve got to make a distinction here between the Democratic party’s rhetoric — in that it purports to stand for social/racial justice and, what goes along with it, the kind of electorate that’s bound to support it (namely, African-Americans, racial [no longer] minorities, etc.) and its affinity with the young, urban, professional class. (Indeed, even “the Occupiers” were more a part of that class than traditional labor.)

And I don’t necessarily see it as an internal contradiction here that the young urban professional elites would adopt all the slogans which call for racial equality/social justice, indeed, even income equality, as part of their social agenda (if only to make itself feel good) while abstaining from incorporating those very ideas into their own practice. I’d like to think that Frank was speaking more to the affinities of the democratic elites and less to the kind of electorate the party must keep on securing in order to ensure its political viability.

Furthermore, it’s much easier (for the privileged and educated white man, that is) to sympathize with the African-Americans and other “minorities” than with “white trash,” whether from North or South, especially since, as we both agree, the good ole’ working class, along with its trade unions, is a thing of the past.

an apparent “white supremacist” mindset

And, you aren’t even a little suspicious of this of manichean name-calling?

Which is why I had put it in scare quotes . . .

bruce wilder 06.30.16 at 3:01 am

an apparent “white supremacist” mindset

And, you aren’t even a little suspicious of this of manichean name-calling?

It’s not clear to me what the objection would be to referring to white supremacists as white supremacists.

Part 2:

Premise:  people wish to forge a group identity that softens and harmonizes psychic tendencies.   Group identities allow a predictable, easy route to identifying friend vs. enemy:  we know how to act out our fear and aggression.   Group identities distract from exisistential anxiety:  we know where to place our attention (spectacle).  Group identities distract from status anxiety:  we know our place among others.   Group identities give our inner animal a chew toy to let the higher-order thinking/experiencing happen.

Now for the identity to work, the group has to be convincingly real:  it has to perform some observable act.    This is ready-made for traditional geographically-based groupings:  you can see the group create the social reality before your eyes:  material coordination, exclusion, expansion/contraction.    If it’s going to be abstract -if the group can exlude your neighbor and include a stranger, etc…- (nation, race, class) then it’s members demand that it perform convincingly for its members or it doesn’t work, psychologically.   Then the identity disintegrates from the minds of its adherents and concurrently from the historical effects that can identify it.   Groups aren’t real beyond the beliefs of the group members.

Modern post-traditional societies are defined by their disintegration of traditional group identities and leave, in their wake, contingent identities that appear and disintegrate before the exploits of capitalist accumulation.   Thus far, individualism appears to be the most stable, most “natural” group identity among modern peoples.  

b9n10nt’s two comments are good, but:

“Now for the identity to work, the group has to be convincingly real: it has to perform some observable act. ”

is not quite complete. Sometimes the only act that the group really performs is opposition to some other group. Then the “observable” part can be self-created after the creation of the group, not before. Since social facts are real, this reality can be quite convincing.

Look at the work that “young internationalists” does in this context. All of a sudden you get people here writing stuff about how old people should die and how they wish they could keep old people from voting on things that don’t affect them (!) and so on. Are these people “young supremacists”? No, but…

bob mcm: “This is why I can use “Marx” as a search term to find what I want, and why I have trouble talking to people who think racism or sexism (or the state) is “just there””

I’m not sure what this means. I prefer an ecological viewpoint within which material culture and symbolic culture interact (symbolic culture determines what materials are produced, material culture puts limits on symbolic culture, etc.) but I don’t see what Marx has to do with it. I tend to refer to Marx as “19th century” to indicate that well he can’t be blamed if these ideas don’t appear in his work, but really Kropotkin’s _Mutual Aid_ was published in 1902. I don’t see how the Marxian tradition can be separated from the idea that the working class is a special class unlike Christians or Canadians because the working class creates value.

What a difference a good speech and a Brexit make, not to mention the never-ending train wreck that is the HRC email debacle.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/white_house_watch

Brexit can be a model for the US to declare independence from globalism, terrorist appeasers, and political correctness. Sounds like a winning message to me.

What are the consequences of staging a coronation for a Wall St. neocon insider who happens to wear a dress, rather than a bona fide socialist change agent?

We’re about to find out.

@ 376 My general view is that the candidate of Wall St. usually wins – that’s HRC this year. You offer very sound advice and must therefore must be a pathological liar, xenophobe, or worse to use a phrase recently deployed by President Peace Prize. I’m not sure that the Remain could have ever won.

I fully expect Trump to blow past HRC as we approach November on a similar message of ‘Yes, we can make America Great, again.’ Her message today is:”don’t listen to all that bad stuff people have been saying about me for the last 25 years.’

Dipper

The principal lesson is not to assume you are more knowledgeable, more intelligent, have better morals, or are nicer than your opponents. Do not tell your opponents that they are being lied to, or that they don’t understand.

Ideally, HRC and Dems in general should go in the other direction. Demonstrate authority, conviction, and a relentless attitude of devil-may-care-what-the-median-voter-thinks. The trick is to have fun campaigning and project a security that says “I don’t care if I win; I’m not a weakling craving victory”. This would include explicitly telling Trump voters (ignore Trump himself) that they lack the character to think things through, consider evidence, etc…and that their politics is merely therapeutic. Goad them. “Kick ass.”

I don’t think most dem. pols could do it, but if they every did…that’s a winning strategy. No triangulation, no appeasement.

BW: “turned it into a confusing demographic analysis of statistics that exaggerated contrasts”

People upthread (unless I have the wrong thread) asked why I didn’t think this was the same kind of thing that I refer to when I say that U.S. politics is organized around racism. History, basically. Not only the centuries-long history of slavery and official racial discrimination, but also comparatively recent yet decades-ago political decisions (Johnson and the Civil Rights Act, Nixon and the Southern Strategy). There’s nothing more inherently real about race than anything else, but there’s been a whole lot of time and culture and moneyed interest that’s gone into reinforcing it as a social reality.

@ Dipper 383

Well, what do I know, but empathic listening (as in therapy) means not having an agenda, and a political candidate does/should have an agenda. What you suggest, as it applies to politicians, seems for fitted for diplomacy or compromise/coalition forming…back room stuff. For campaigning (esp for Prez), show strength.

AFter all, by my reckoning, we hardly have “genuine concerns” in the political realm. It’s all made up.

and your politics would be what?

Personally? It very well may be self-gratification all the way down.

No serious candidate could ever convince anyone — even the barely sentient –that the candidate really did not want power.

But there are ways on the campaign trail to call attention to one’s craven ambition and ways to mask it, no?

The campaigns are engaged in manipulation and the imperatives of social control narrow their means to those that depress cognition.

Yes.

http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/

J-D: “If there actually are people who adhere to the opinion that ‘Those damned old people shouldn’t get to vote on something that will condemn younger people to a life of misery’, then ‘youth supremacists’ would be a good name for them.”

Why?

Let’s say that the pollsters had announced that people with freckles had disproportionately voted Leave. Next day we’d see a lot of denunciations. Those damned frecks, why can’t they buy some skin cream? People with skin spots shouldn’t get to vote on issues that affect the rest of us. Etc. (“Freck” concept a British satire: Pat Mills, _Nemesis the Warlock_). Is this the discovery of hitherto hidden clear-skin supremacy? People suddenly discovering that they had common anti-freck interests?

The difference between the British and American situations is that I suspect that “damned old people” will soon be forgotten as a trope, while a similar thing in the American context has been going on for centuries.

Note that it really is sort of possible for different generations to have different interests. But it’s a lot more rare than people think: people in a society are so closely bound together that it’s difficult to really separate interests by age. What’s much more common is that different generations have different general formative experiences and therefore different ways of looking at events. That’s what I mean by a generational divide.

#388

Excellent analysis, RNB.

To cite one relevant passage:

“In Nancy Fraser’s terms, New Labour offered ‘redistribution’ but no ‘recognition’.
This cultural contradiction wasn’t sustainable and nor was the geographic one.

“Not only was the ‘spatial fix’ a relatively short-term one, seeing as it depended on rising tax receipts from the South East and a centre left government willing to spread money quite lavishly (albeit, discreetly), it also failed to deliver what many Brexit-voters perhaps crave the most: the dignity of being self-sufficient, not necessarily in a neoliberal sense, but certainly in a communal, familial and fraternal sense.”

And now, on parallelism with the US situation:

“This taps into a much broader cultural and political malaise, that also appears to be driving the rise of Donald Trump in the US. Amongst people who have utterly given up on the future, political movements don’t need to promise any desirable and realistic change. If anything, they are more comforting and trustworthy if predicated on the notion that the future is beyond rescue, for that chimes more closely with people’s private experiences.”

I only wish I could regard the American redneck in similar terms — i.e, as craving for the dignity of being self sufficient . . .

Is it really possible that the defeat of the South had left such scars on many of those who had survived, including future generations?

Rich P., @390

Let’s say that the pollsters had announced that people with freckles had disproportionately voted Leave. Next day we’d see a lot of denunciations. Those damned frecks, why can’t they buy some skin cream? People with skin spots shouldn’t get to vote on issues that affect the rest of us. […] Is this the discovery of hitherto hidden clear-skin supremacy? People suddenly discovering that they had common anti-freck interests?

Well, make them gingers, and you see that yes. As soon as you say “they shouldn’t get to vote”, it’s beyond a limit, IMHO. Also, you aren’t seriously claiming that the concept of inter-generational conflicts has been unknown in Britain up to know, are you?

‘old people shouldn’t get to vote…’

I don’t have time to read the whole thread, but – are people really arguing this?

[if so, it sounds to me like an instance of the typical generational-bashing that the elites deploy the muddy the actual lines of social conflict. we got the same over in the US, but with the ire directed at the youth rather than the old. if anything, this inconsistency btw the US and UK should reveal the underlying logic of the position – it is not about who is more ‘world-wise’ or has ‘skin in the game’ (etc), it is about who votes in a way that is inconvenient to financial capital.]

roger #392: Is it really possible that the defeat of the South had left such scars on many of those who had survived, including future generations?

The White South’s last defeat: http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/the_white_souths_last_defeat/

Rich Puchalsky 07.01.16 at 1:53 am

J-D: “I can’t help getting the impression that the difference between the two statements is not clear to you, although I would love to be proved wrong about that.”

Your reading comprehension problems really aren’t my problem.

You wrote: “If there actually are people who adhere to the opinion that ‘Those damned old people shouldn’t get to vote on something that will condemn younger people to a life of misery’, then ‘youth supremacists’ would be a good name for them.”

I wrote that if the Leave vote had been primarily freckled, then the people who actually adhere to the opinion that old people shouldn’t vote would now be actually adhering to the opinion that freckled people shouldn’t vote. If the Leave vote had been primarily left-handed people, then Remain voters would say that left-handed people shouldn’t get to vote. Is this right-handed supremacy?

People can object that this is ridiculous. Is it really any more ridiculous than saying that old people shouldn’t get to vote on things that “don’t affect them”? Old people probably get more economic benefits from the EU than younger people do. Younger people will also get more chances to change their minds and vote a different way. And of course old people get to vote on what’s best for a society that they helped to build just as young people get to vote on a society that they expect to have a long adult life in. It’s all ridiculous, but it’s all predictable. You can create any kind of “supremacy” that you want, if this is all it takes to call something a supremacist belief.

‘Your reading comprehension problems really aren’t my problem.’

I didn’t suggest that there was any problem. Your meaning was not (and still is not) clear to me, but if you have no interest in making it clear, obviously I can’t force you (and wouldn’t try if I could) — I wouldn’t describe that as a problem.

If there actually were people who suggested that left-handers shouldn’t be allowed to vote, it would be reasonable to describe those people as ‘right-hander supremacists’. However, there’s no evidence that there actually are any such people.

If there actually are people who adhere to the opinion that old people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, it is reasonable to describe those people as ‘youth supremacists’. I don’t know whether there are any such people, though.

‘People can object that this [trying to deny the vote to freckled people, or to left-handed people] is ridiculous. Is it really any more ridiculous than saying that old people shouldn’t get to vote on things that “don’t affect them”?’

No. All those suggestions are ridiculous. If youth supremacism actually exists, it is ridiculous. If right-hander supremacism actually exists, it is ridiculous. If people-without-freckles supremacism actually exists, it is ridiculous. Just because they are ridiculous is not a good reason for not having names for them. White supremacism actually does exist, and it is ridiculous, and that’s not a reason for not having a name for it.

This article on “Empathy For Bullies” relates directly to how to think about group identities that (seek to) perpetuate oppression. Quoted from the link:

…But, what about the bullies themselves? How are we addressing the deeper rooted issues that cause these children to violate the boundaries of their peers? Quite often, behind every bully is an even bigger bully. Bullying behavior is learned and most bullies are being bullied themselves. In addition, it is often likely that bullies are suffering from some type of mental health or learning disability, which can impact their cognition, their ability to accurately interpret social interactions and cues, and their ability to properly identify and effectively communicate their feelings. When the consequences for bullying behavior are reactive rather than proactive, we find ourselves unintentionally perpetuating the bullying cycle. This in turn makes it difficult to be tolerant of, and patient with, children who engage in bullying behavior.

We start to label these children as “bad children.” We write them off and decide their fates for them because we are unaware of how to support them. The first way we can show empathy for bullies is to separate the child from the behavior. There is no such thing as a “bad child.” There is only bad behavior. Another way we can find empathy for bullies is to find out which positive adult role model the child likes most (i.e. school staff, family member, community member, etc.) and use that relationship to foster positive behaviors and interactions with others. Also, try and recognize and acknowledge any positive or desired behaviors, no matter how small or insignificant they may be. Positive reinforcement can go a long way. These are, by no means, a cure all for the bulling epidemic that is happening in our society. However, these are a couple of helpful examples that may enable us to have more compassion and empathy for bullies.

Ich bin ein Frankfurter

J-D: “Just because they are ridiculous is not a good reason for not having names for them.”

There is no reason to have different names for different minor variations of the same thing: that only keeps people from realizing that these variations are all really examples of the same thing. And none of those variations is a type of supremacy. For something to be “supremacy” it has to become long-term belief and actual practice rather than momentary resentment.

J-D: “So what do you think would be a good name for people who adhere to opinions like ‘Those damned old people shouldn’t get to vote on something that will condemn younger people to a life of misery’?”

“People”

Or more seriously, people in our current U.S. / British / “First World” societies. When people start talking about tribalism (in this context), this is related to it. Michael Berube a while back wrote some posts that referenced Stuart Hall in which he coined the phrase “I used to consider myself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick.” People are looking for group definition: they will seize on any momentary excuse to form or reinforce one: if one becomes established they will signal their membership in the group by adopting a whole package of group beliefs that they then suddenly believe in.

roger n: “Otherwise, why do we bother to communicate?”

I don’t know about other people, but I bother to communicate with people who I think are going to do the minimal work of figuring out what I probably mean when I’ve written something that should be pretty clear. If they aren’t willing to do that work — and one common tactic is to refuse to do that work, persistently and publicly — then they quickly drop down my list of people to reply to and may join the ranks of people who I just ignore. I’ll explain myself a few times, but that’s boring and it’s not what I write comments here for.

Rich Puchalsky 07.01.16 at 11:00 am
J-D: “So what do you think would be a good name for people who adhere to opinions like ‘Those damned old people shouldn’t get to vote on something that will condemn younger people to a life of misery’?”

“People”

Or more seriously, people in our current U.S. / British / “First World” societies.

Marklar Leader: You see we call everything Marklar.
Kyle: Doesn’t that get confusing?
Marklar Leader: No, not at all. Hey Marklar!
Marklar: Yes Marklar.
Marklar Leader: You see!

Kyle: Wait, wait, I think I can explain this whole thing. Marklar, these Marklars want to change your Marklar. They don’t want this Marklar or any of his Marklars to live here, because it’s bad for their Marklar. They use Marklar to try and force Marklars to believe their Marklar. If you let them stay here, they will build Marklars and Marklars, they will take all your Marklars and replace them with Marklar. These Marklars have no good Marklar to live on Marklar, so they must come here to Marklar. Please, let these Marklars stay where they can dwell and prosper without any Marklars, Marklars or Marklars.
Alien: Young Marklar, your Marklars are wise and true.
Christian woman: What the hell did he say?