FT: US against the world? Trump’s America and the new global order

[No Excuses]

https://www.ft.com/content/6a43cf54-a75d-11e6-8b69-02899e8bd9d1

Quote

 

We have seen this story before. This is the story of Brexit, where the pro-Leave vote was similarly concentrated in rural areas and small towns and cities outside London. It is also true in France, where working-class voters whose parents and grandparents used to vote for the Communist or Socialist parties are voting for Marine Le Pen’s National Front.

But populist nationalism is a far broader phenomenon than that. Vladimir Putin remains unpopular among more educated voters in big cities such as St Petersburg and Moscow, but has a huge support base in the rest of the country. The same is true of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has an enthusiastic support base among the country’s conservative lower middle class, or Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, who is popular everywhere but in Budapest.

Social class, defined today by one’s level of education, appears to have become the single most important social fracture in countless industrialised and emerging-market countries. This, in turn, is driven directly by globalisation and the march of technology, which has been facilitated in turn by the liberal world order created largely by the US since 1945.

 

 

To avoid the paywall, click on the first google search link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=US+against+the+world%3F+Trump’s+America+and+the+new+global+order&oq=US+against+the+world%3F+Trump’s+America+and+the+new+global+order&aqs=chrome..69i57.2801j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

I think this article presents the greatest single social issue of our time and pretty much everything else socially needs to be put on the back-burner for the foreseeable future.

Maybe this thread can serve as a mega-thread for all things globalization and the future of education, work and labor in Western democracies. 

 

[zoony]

Subscription only fail

looks interesting would have loved to read

[No Excuses]

Just now, zoony said:

Subscription only fail

looks interesting would have loved to read

Really? I don't have a subscription but was able to open it. 

Can I go ahead and quote most of it?

[Corcaigh]

Been talking about this economic issue ... the death of the working class  ... with friends for the last decade. What's new is the current cycle where far right populists have exploited it:

Putin's Russia.  Erdogan's Turkey. Orbán's Hungary. Kaczynski's Poland. Abe's Japan. Then you have Brexit and UKIP's gains and next France with Le Pen

[Skinz4Life12]

It says I need a subscription to read it as well. Interesting read based on what you posed in the OP..

[brandymac27]

2 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

Really? I don't have a subscription but was able to open it. 

Can I go ahead and quote most of it?

I can't read it either.

[Elessar78]

****. Trump built a pay wall that I'm going to end up paying for. 

[Corcaigh]

Clicking on the link prompted for a subscription. Searching on the title took me to the article.

[No Excuses]

nvm linking to a tweet doesn't work either.

[brandymac27]

Ok I googled the link and was able to get the article

 

[Elessar78]

7 minutes ago, Corcaigh said:

Been talking about this economic issue ... the death of the working class  ... with friends for the last decade. What's new is the current cycle where far right populists have exploited it:

Putin's Russia.  Erdogan's Turkey. Orbán's Hungary. Kaczynski's Poland. Abe's Japan. Then you have Brexit and UKIP's gains and next France with Le Pen

On a related topic, my coworkers and I have a recurring conversation about automization of many many jobs (partly because we build machines that displace workers). Those middle class jobs are likely not coming back. It's completely foreseeable that in the not so distant future, govt's will pay for more and more people to remain idle. 

Might as well join the creative class who will create content for all this leisure time. 

[No Excuses]

Well it seems like the article is behind a paywall and it's a pain in the ass to get to it otherwise. Sorry ya'll. But anyways, to keep the discussion going, here is maybe the most chilling development in the battle between tech/globalization and working class people.

The arrival of automated trucks and cars.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/the-driverless-truck-is-coming-and-its-going-to-automate-millions-of-jobs/

Quote

 

While the efficiency gains are real — too real to pass up — the technology will have tremendous adverse effects as well. There are currently more than 1.6 million Americans working as truck drivers, making it the most common job in 29 states.

The loss of jobs representing 1 percent of the U.S. workforce will be a devastating blow to the economy. And the adverse consequences won’t end there. Gas stations, highway diners, rest stops, motels and other businesses catering to drivers will struggle to survive without them.

 

 

Automated vehicles in general are going to disrupt tons of industries.

 

This is #1 reason why I think Trump is just the beginning.

[Corcaigh]

3 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

Automated vehicles in general are going to disrupt tons of industries.

 

Truckers will disappear but the trucker hat industry will survive because it will be a central part of everyone's political campaign.

In the future, kids will ask, "why is it called a trucker hat?"

11 minutes ago, Elessar78 said:

Might as well join the creative class who will create content for all this leisure time. 

 

[No Excuses]

Just now, Corcaigh said:

In the future, kids will ask, "why is it called a trucker hat?"

You assume that there is a future in which this question is asked. 

I do wonder what this means in terms of politics. Limiting this level of massive job loss is going to require a whole lot of government regulatory intervention to slow down the influx of automated vehicles into the market.

Generally the right has been the party to support deregulation and let business interests reign supreme. Does that change moving forward? Does the left find it to be a worthy issue to fight against, even though they are heavily supported and funded by Silicon Valley?

[Destino]

This isn't entirely a new situation, the haves standing to prosper while the have-nots sink further is an endlessly recurring plot.  I realize that those terms are less flattering than describing the divide as more educated and less educated but higher education isn't some incredible achievement marking a persons vast intelligence and value.  Its largely class privilege.

Quote

Among the report’s findings: When American households are organized into four income groups, 24-year-olds from the top two groups accounted for 77 percent of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2014. In 1970, that figure was 72 percent, suggesting that growing up in a wealthier household matters even more now in completing a degree than it did four decades ago. Graduates who hailed from households with incomes of at least $116,000—the top quarter—represented more than half of all the degrees awarded in 2014 among 24-year-olds. Students from households that earned less than $35,000—the lowest quarter—represented just 10 percent of all the degrees awarded. The report, which relied on U.S. Census and other data sources, was released by scholars at the University of Pennsylvania, Council for Opportunity in Education, and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/the-growing-wealth-gap-in-who-earns-college-degrees/479688/

"bootstraps" rebranded.

[FanboyOf91]

 

[Corcaigh]

17 minutes ago, FanboyOf91 said:

 

I think she means the "Global elite" as intellectuals, and folks who read newspapers like the Washington Post, NY Times, London Times, Guardian etc.

[zoony]

Im not sure I see the trucker thing to be as big of an issue

these regulations will be voted on at the state level and I don't see any state legislatures saying "ok" to driverless, 80,000 pound behemoths hurling down our roads at 70 mph completely unattended. 

What I see is more driver assisted automation, coupled with a gradual decline of wages in that category, as companies can essentially start filling that job with less skilled labor. i think that will be  a phase out to take place over several decades

But who knows

[Kosher Ham]

The trucks drive themselves, they don't load or unload themselves. Not to mention you still need a "driver". 

I am looking forward to automated cars and trucks. 

I prefer a drunk driver...not driving. I prefer a truck driver...not tired. etc. 

[PeterMP]

Long term, I do not think you can have a successful economy if you reject automation and trade that results in globalization.  Other countries are going to be more efficient on the global market if they automate and you did not.  Trade seems to be an integral component of any growing economy.

I think in terms of the current economic situation and the "global elite" it isn't hard to find people that have been and did warn of various things happening (e.g. in terms of the financial crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooksley_Born and the idea that trickle down economics wasn't a good idea goes back from its introduction on the national political level.  George Bush called it voodoo economics during his primary with Reagan, but Reagan won the primary and then went onto win the general election, and then when Bush didn't practice it as President wasn't re-elected.).  It isn't so much that the elite have been wrong.  It has been that we haven't listened to the right ones.  The not listening component, I think mostly comes from the power of corporations and money in the political process.

However, efforts to limit it (in the US) have been stymied by the inability to create meaningful campaign finance reform, which is at least partly tied to the make up of the Supreme Court.  We have a lot of people that are voting against their economic self-interest (again not a new idea that a lot of people have been saying for years) and as part of that, they are voting against their own ability to longer term control the political process (i.e. they are voting for people that are going to appoint Supreme Court justices that are going to not allow campaign finance reform maintaining the system where people with money have more political power).

[PeterMP]

There is a difference between the elite in terms of thought, education, and ideas and the political elite.

The political elite are elite at getting elected, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are elite in terms of the ideas that they present or push forward in terms of public policy (or have).

I believe among the elite in terms of economic thought, there is broad support for a carbon tax.  Even many "conservative" economists seem to support the idea, but among a majority of the US political elite, it is a non-starter (where the political elite are concerned with not if its a good idea or not, but being elected).

It is also a mistake wealth with being elite in terms of ideas or thoughts in the current situation and economic policy where a person's starting point can have a large affect on their ability to have and even accumulate wealth.