And I say,”Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
2
Add waves of hundreds of thousands plus of unvetted Muslim migrants raised from birth with the belief that Sharia Law supersedes Western secular law and that Jews are descended from apes who never had any history in the Land of Israel and deserve to die, add an elite technocracy who prefers to look the other way to the point defaulting to growing Far Right groups to point out the emperor has no clothes, and put the costs of the Paris Climate Accord squarely on the poor and working class (e.g. the diesel tax), stir, and there you have it.
21
Foolish really - the tax should have come on board slowly, over a period of time. No compromising is stupidity. Don't they talk to each other?
2
Great news. Goodbye elitists, big city enclaves of wealth and power, globalists, big nations, big governments. Let them eat GM cake in the dark.
4
As Pink Floyd sang, "The lunatics are in the streets..," as indeed they are, little lemmings worldwide following the American pied piper over the economic cliffs popping up everywhere thanks to Trump's indifference to geopolitics, global networking and the rules of law and order. "Ignorati of the world unite," would appear to be his battlecry on one level, but in accord with the most base of human impulses: greed and tribal politics, wedded to indifference of the Other.
4
The Dems cheerleading on behalf of the tens of thousands of poor, unskilled illegal migrants crossing our borders every year reminds me of Republicans cheerleading against abortion rights. Both illegal migrants and unwanted babies result in a colossal financial burden to American citizens. But neither the Dems nor the Republicans will acknowledge the fact, while neither acts in the best interests of the American citizenry.
15
friedman doesn't know how to fix europe's malaise? it's staring him in the face.
hong kong and usa styled capitalism. that's how.
it's not a coincidence that the most free economies are the most dynamic with lowest unemployment.
europe prefers redistribution. enjoy.
3
1. Income inequality in the post-industrial West is politically determined. People are angry. They should be. If you don’t like riots, if you want to sip coffee on the Champs-Élysées, stop nailing the hides of ordinary people to the wall.
2. When Ronnie Reagan was president the global oligarchy knew what it wanted: more of everything. They got it. Now we’re seeing the result.
3. Not much mention of Germany by the (as usual) tone deaf Mr. Friedman — whose answers are hogwash, being in essence a defense of international criminals. Why aren’t they rioting in Munich and Berlin? Because German elites, unlike French and American ones, support an industrial policy that has given Germany 25% of GDP coming from manufacturing. In France it’s 16%. In the United States it’s 12%. Gee, why do many Germans live well enough not to riot?
4. Germany, unlike France and the U.S., protects large businesses from crooks called “venture capitalists.” What do we have? Policies to reward thugs when they dismantle Sears for fun and profit.
Those left behind have no tolerance for those eating caviar off their backs. But the global oligarchy (personified here by the Koch brothers) likes riots and workers who angrily go right. They like the possibilities. If the world goes right fast enough, as it’s doing, the oligarchy will own it all, including the autocrats. Think that’s crazy? I offer you: Donald Trump and and his voters.
Grow up, Mr. Friedman. Stop apologizing for gangsters.
27
But why is it that people of color in France, the U.S. and elsewhere, who are in worse shape economically on average, are not engaging in this reactionary backlash behavior? This piece misses this critical point.
6
Okay, so the disenfranchised lower-middle and middle-middle classes want to tear down their liberal democracies for a number of reasons. Tempers are rising, passions are strong and it feels oh so good to spit in the face of elitism. Yeah, stick it to The Man. I've felt that way too at times. What is the alternative? Governments like Russia, China, Hungary, Saudi Arabia? Do they even consider that their situation could be worse under some other political regime?
No they don't and frankly if we don't take a collective deep breath and find a way to stem this tide we are witnessing the end of a golden era that we have taken for granted. For my children, in their early 30s, there really will be a 'good old days'. In 20 years they will hearken back to their youth in the late '90s and early '00s and wonder what the heck happened. And so will the children of the people who brought down France, Britain, Germany and the USA.
They all will be trapped in some form of authoritarian oligarchy with no way out. And they can thank their parents, you know, us.
8
Friedman tells us that “These rapid accelerations in technology and globalization have brought many more immigrants into many more remote corners of (Western) societies”. It is the problem that led the UK to vote Brit Exit.
Major East Asian nations, such as Japan, China and South Korea showed postwar and still show little concern about being able to control levels of immigrants.
As an older non-operating industrial consultant (I am 92) I remember the acceptance through East Asia postwar for the growth of poorer Asian nations. We should surely be looking at what these leading East Asian societies did after WWII. I understand there will be an opportunity.
The over expensive Marshall Plan never reached Asia but instead President Truman offered his un-financed Point 4, in his Inaugural Address.
“The material resources which we can afford to use for assistance of other(s) (are) limited. But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible." (Details of P4 are readily available on the Internet.)
Point 4 was welcomed by MacArthur and the Japanese and, I understand will be featured at an exhibit at the Tokyo Museum commemorating the 70th Anniversary of Truman’s Point 4 on or soon after January, 20th 2019
Profs. Iki Akitoshi and Goto, Toshio have written substantially on this matter.
5
“It is going to take extraordinary leadership for the U.S., Britain and the E.U. to come up with a strategy for these grievances.” Exactly. What the world needs right now is for some kind of political genius to rise up: someone with irresistible charisma, impeccable political instincts, deep knowledge of the workings of the economy (local and global), equally deep respect for and understanding of science. Since, as Mr. Friedman suggests, there is nobody like that around (although Macron has some of the necessary qualities), what we need is some kind of committee on governance that can write the 5-year plan—to be adapted to the local conditions in each country—that this political genius who does not exist would have come up with. The impulse shopper in the White House—buying immoral family separation yesterday, wonderful prison reform today, ramped up trade wars and 100 other dumb policies tomorrow—might not listen to the 5 year plan, but a smart Democrat looking at 2020 might.
8
What this woman from France says misses the point: “I’m here for my children and grandchildren and all those people left crying by the 15th of the month because they’ve gone into the red." Soon, your children and grandchildren will be facing far more dangerous situations (food, pollution, political unrest) due to climate change. If we don't prioritize the planet, NO ONE will benefit.
10
Imagine a world with capital punishment - corporate capital punishment. After repeated crimes of unbelievable magnitude, the corporation is sentenced to death. All assets forfeited to be distributed to those left in the wake of its malfeasance. Will never happen, but one can dream.
5
"It is going to take extraordinary leadership for the U.S., Britain and the E.U. to come up with a strategy for these grievances" [based on the kind of lies that persuaded voters to choose Brexit].
Unfortunately, it is this same contemporary leadership that is telling the lies. This works well for partisanship but it stinks for governance. Such leadership might well be extraordinary but if so it is extraordinarily bad.
4
Both the E.U. and the USA have become sharply less free in recent years - perhaps you should write about the loss of the Mandates of your supposed bastions.
In the EU its unelected Bureaucrats rule from the left while in the US corporate monopoly power dominates from the right.
Both stand equally culpable of killing the dreams and hopes of millions of ordinary people living in these increasingly undemocratic blocks.
5
Globalization is pitting us all against each other, while the fruits flow up to the wealthy. It's not sustainable. We need real populism, FDR type populism. People are citizens of their country, first, and a global citizen, 2nd. They expect their country to have their best interest at heart. That is not necessarily the case right now. As Warren Buffett said “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
10
An interesting essay but top heavy on the problems and distorts the meaning of current distress in France. I like the posts of Tom's Quill and Lilou- disruption in Paris was exaggerated by global media who love a fight or crisis.
The rich have too much power and tell the rest of us that the crux of our problems is immigration. Not so in the Western hemisphere where the fossil fuel barons want to ride their profitable products all the way into the grave of uncontrolled climate change. I'll let the Europeans speak for themselves. We badly need new leaders coming from the bottom up, many of them women. The media are eager to select and anoint a Democratic Presidential candidate chosen from the elite, a man on a white horse. Macron seems to be an example of such a savior- no savior at all.
We can have solar panels on every roof and control the corporations- if enough people fight hard enough and long enough.
4
Democracy can't seem to solve our challenges: climate change, automation, migration, a living wage and in the USA add: health care.
The time to negotiate these changes is waning just at a time when some are polarizing to authoritarianism. Perhaps they will seem prescient in the days ahead. Who knew globalization, technological change, and climate change could be so hard?
5
Mr. Friedman left out an important factor, the increasing maldistribution of wealth, especially since the recovery from the global recession ten years ago. Especially in the US, but apparently in Europe as well, the elite of the elite, the top .1% financially, have pushed economic policies exclusively to their own benefit. The Frenchwoman who referenced the state of affairs prior to the French Revolution put her finger on the problem.
9
There is some encouragement in alliances. I am thinking of the meeting which worked on a joint agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Europe must still recall its recent dark past. We used to offer help and an example here in the US. I pray that we soon can again. Brexit is a mess. Somehow the UK must find a way to prevent the looming chaos. I hope so earnestly.
1
The commentary of Mr. Friedman is void of facts, statistics and numbers. I can’t find any hard evidence in the paragraphs that would support his claim about a deteriorating middle class. The decline of manufacturing jobs is part of the ages long disruptive renewal of capitalism. New jobs in new sectors replace them. There is no ongoing economic crisis in France or elsewhere in Europe. Actually wealth and prosperity have reached historic heights. Yes indeed we have seen a trend that fewer people at the top own more than what has been the norm. That’s a problem in many ways, but one that is easy to fix: taxes on income from any source. What modern democracies need to survive is education. Otherwise we have everything, actually too much of everything. Future generations will do better when they are more educated and own less stuff. This trend is seen in the current younger generations who have obtained higher academic degrees. They own fewer cars, furniture and houses, they value community and sharing. They are more tolerant towards others, and they have embraced a sustainable life style. The new elites will look very different: educated and thriving in a shared economy that focuses on information and not materialism. And one that knows that the survival of our civilization will depend on curbing carbon emissions to almost zero. Most people will support a government that redistributes income and invests this in the community: education, vocational training and social services.
6
M. Macron's program, which Mr. Friedman calls "reforms," is this: continued, deeper impoverishment of the workers and ever more money and power to the super rich. Why would the European working people not oppose him?
The elite have not grasped that social media have changed the political system in the 21st century as fundamentally as the press did in the 18th century.
5
Increasingly, the low skill jobs are also local jobs. They need doing. There is no one in China who will pick up the trash, no one in India who will serve a restaurant meal, no one in Mexico who will deliver a package to your door. We can and must enable the Americans who do these jobs to feel like they have a real stake in the economic deal. We can, in fact, do this with two measures, both easy to explain but politically difficult to accomplish. (1) Raise the minimum wage to $15 and index it to inflation. (2) Provide universal access to health care. There are a host of other measures we might do as well, e.g. major educational assistance to those who would have trouble affording it. But the two measures above would go a long way toward making America more prosperous and less contentious.
10
further to my last message I believe the rest of the EU need to take a share of the responsibility for the outcome of the vote .if they believed that the uk leaving was going to be so bad for the rest of them they should have promised David Cameron the earth when he sought a renegotiation deal before the referendum took place...they could have either made sure the vote didn't need to happen or by their positive attitude engineered the "correct" outcome for themselves. when the time came to deliver on said promises , there could easily have been some legal technicalities that prevented preferential treatment to any member country.The UK public wouldn't have thought any less of them than we do now. Surely when, depending how you calculate the figure the second or third highest net contributor to the EU budget feels so disenchanted , so out of touch with the rest of the member states to even consider leaving then that suggests to me there is a fundamental problem within the top heavy expensive organisation . Now I don't actually believe the winning margin was enough to have effected a change and i would have said that had the vote gone the other way , it takes a two third majority in parliament to get things through ......I don`t feel anti European and certainly don't mean to come across as such but I don't agree with the direction the EU seems to be heading and my vote reflected this clearly many other felt the same...
3
The problem is that many of the agreement that were entered into your ago with the WTO no longer work today. The US has realiazed that the world does not like us at all. This was true under Obam and is true under Trump.
I did not vote for him and I do not and would not vote from him in 20202. But the only thing he is right about if that none of the trades deals made in the last 20 years have helped the American works and that has to change.
The EU and NATO have not paid their fair share same with the U.S. it is time everyone understand that we have commone goals and work togehter .
Chian and Russia want one thing and the rest of the world want to move in another direction. But that will not happen as long as we fitht either other.
The Russian and Chinese want us to fight and not trust our governments we must fight againsgt this.
Well, so much for civilization as we know it. America is in the thrall of corruption on a vast scale. Europe is returning to the days of German hegemony without a war. Britain's retreat has been accomplished. Who stands to win? The authoritarian Chinese.
63
@Stephen Kurtz Do not be so sure about China. They have staggering undisclosed debt at the state and county level. The population that has built most of the wealth has been under attack by Xi and many have been jailed for corruption. Corruption in China is not the same as we define it here in the West. They have Millions in detention and want to control Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet. Not many people in these 3 semi-autonomous regions want total Chinese control.
8
@Stephen Kurtz--true about America, but, as not all Americans like Trump's administration (around 30 percent), even a greater percentage of EU residents, the majority, want the EU to stay together and work out its problems. They will welcome the UK back, but the UK has to decide what it wants to do. The Far Right and Far Left have little influence, although they try to wrest control if an opportunity presents itself. The Yellow Vests are rightfully ticked off with some decisions of the Macron government, but no one wants to flee to either extreme--they want Macron, and the government, to resolve the current issues. Few want to be a part of extreme movements that offer no real solutions to real world problems. The Extreme Right and the Extreme Left urge the breakup of the European Union. It's illogical, as we're more powerful together, and have the world's richest trading bloc. The Extreme Right tries to attract supporters via fear of immigrants, except numbers of immigrants to Europe have dropped drastically. The Extreme Left offers philosophy in lieu of a platform. Both extremes seek power, but have no plan. Now, Russia wants the breakup of the EU also, because they want to take back former Soviet land, and more.
13
When President Obama was nearing his term in Office, the German Chancellor Merkel by some accounts told him, 'I will be alone now'. She is gone now in a manner of speaking.
The breaking of Britain, or Brexit, leaves the nation vulnerable with its stiff upper lip, and the Lion and the Unicorn part ways.
Italy in a state of financial collapse is not as happy as Lazzaro, and France rumbles, while the Rooster tries to gather his supporters in the midst of stung 'Yellow Vests'. President Macron may have to resign. Their fury unleashed, Hugo's 'Miserables' may be on the March. Perhaps there is a Robespierre in this scenario.
There was once a formidable alliance between France and America, but then FDR was in the photo, Stalin beside him is smiling, and Churchill is looking dour.
Whether the possible collapse of Europe, without Democracy, has meaning for America is a matter to be considered, revisiting the graves of its soldiers at Verdun.
We no longer fight wars with horses and bayonets but there are other means of destroying the spirit of a country, of flattening a continent, and Macron has few allies left.
Europa in peril, looks to Poutine for want of allies, and here the Bull is running from the Matador. China is watching, India remains silent, and Macron can do little, without the support of his foot soldiers.
Call in the Indestructible Irish on all sides, and start looking for viable solutions.
1
When studying economics, a question both majors and non-majors are likely to ask is "What does this have to do with us?" - or more accurately, what impact does economics have on the lives of each and every citizen? Not that we citizens our purchasing power principally determines the quantity of goods purchased and consumed, meaning that we are proportionally parts of the economy, but problems and policies, within an international and macro context may, in the positive or the negative terms so, determine whether citizens’ lands are or will continue to be termed “valley of economic opportunities.” But today as “high-wage, middle-skilled jobs are vanishing,” to borrow of the words of Mr. Thomas L. Friedman, and governments that have entered into a social contract with their citizens have miserably failed or are incapable of intervening so this particular predicament, that of the poor and middleclass men and women, helps explains why they can no longer spoke of money as "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty."
1
"Britain to commit suicide", "the end of Europe", France is finished too, Italy is out and Germany is kaput I guess. "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine", sang Michael Stipe of REM. Could the Editors of the Times tone down the rhetoric a bit, sometimes I feel like I'm reading a tabloid newspaper.
4
Congratulations! You've got it exactly backwards. The US and the EU are being shaken by unfettered, illegal, third-world immigration. These downtrodden "white working-poor" people you scorn are right. You are wrong.
13
Your claims are pure fantasy. Immigration numbers are down in the US and the E.U. and the rhetoric is up. Crime numbers in the US and the E.U. have reached historic lows, the rhetoric about heinous gangs and marauding immigrants reached a historic high.
1
Too many Americans commenting, with too few clues. Business as usual at the NYT.
3
Economic stability is dissolving into uncertainty for many. There will be rioting and worse as more and more jobs are replaced by automation. More people will be joining the ranks of the disgruntled rural folk. It's a very bleak picture. We will be experiencing those Mad Max films firsthand.
1
I read your article here with interest.....a lot of interest, I`m a small farmer in a very wet (most of the time ) south west Scotland …….Brexit et all that is to do with the EU has a very big impact on me and my family … I voted to leave.....did i do the right thing? ...I don't know anymore...ive gone to from thinking it was the right thing to do long term and for a greater good rather than just what might be best for me, to thinking we have done the wrong thing , to back to my initial position and there are many reasons for this thinking. I believe my parent voted to sign up to the EEC the european economic community in the mid 1970`s , not to join the EU a European Union and that's quite important to me ..I believe the EU, in trying to be all thing to all men ( and women) is in danger of being like "will fit" spare parts …..will fit most makes but in reality fits nothing properly . To say we are all the same is to say that the small extensive almost subsitence farmers of some of the more recent European member countries to the east are exactly the same as the highly intensive irish or uk farms and the same as the highly mechanised dutch or german farms therefore we need flexibility .I don't believe the current Common agriculture policy addresses this diversity properly and does little to meet the needs of farmer/grower ,consumer nor of the environment properly. I shall continue in another message if I may
8
Here's an idea: let's take all of the money from the exploitative capitalists and give it back to the people that made everything with their own hands.
Wellp, we can't do that. Because the exploitative capitalists control our governments.
What to do, what to do...
4
The insurgencies noted in the article are all targeting the wrong "culprits". In general, the baseline culprit is the march of technology. layered over that is capitalism, which seeks maximum profits above making life good for everyone and tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of a relative few. There is no reason why capitalism has to do that, it's just what happens more and more if it is less and less regulated.
Finally, there will always be a huge portion of humanity that will lose out because that's just the way life works; there will always be many fewer highly intelligent, highly educated, highly skilled, and highly motivated people sucking up wealth than all the average schmoes. The schmoes have to fight over the leftovers from the elite; less so in a socialist society, but still so.
Those ranting against liberal globalism have no idea how much worse their lives would be without it. But some of them might be about to find out.
5
People are sick and tired of bring lied to. The nanny state has not delivered on it's promises and never will. Shame on the NYT for being part of the problem by promoting the fantasy that by pulling this lever or pushing that button all of society's desires could be fulfilled by the policies of an enlightened leader.
9
Those of us in the labor movement have been flashing the warning signs for years. Too bad we were ignored and it has come to this. Even your list of stake holders omits people who know the working class best. Tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the rest of us has been a bust. Being told to go get a higher education if you want a ticket to the middle class just swept the problem under the rug. There will be no solution until the intelectuals and power brokers climb down from their ivory towers and meet the working class as equals.
8
The end of Europe? Not just Europe, but the world as we know it.
5
The fundamental assumption that rural communities have not somehow benefited from globalization is misplaced - in fact, globalization feeds off the impoverishment and subjugation of rural populations. The oppression and impoverishment of rural groups is the fuel that feeds the wealth of NYC and the global liberal multicultural elite cities, and it has always been that way and will continue, too. The unity of these urban liberal elites is the cars they drive - call them the WaBenzi, the people of the Mercedes Benz. Not a lot of them in Plymouth, NH, but loads in Greenwich and Palo Alto and Chelsea and the 16th arrondissement. It is good in a way to see these places boarded up, like so many rural storefronts are here in rural NH.
1
It's over. Turn out the lights.
2
The closely connected world the Mr. Friedman has advocated throughout his career is disappearing from the scene.
We do not know what is coming but it is too early for lamentations of the sort that he is writing. Perhaps he is disappointed at the growing evidence that he has been wrong from the beginning.
7
When studying economics, a question both majors and non-majors are likely to ask is "What does this have to do with us?" - or more accurately, what impact does economics have on the lives of each and every citizen? Not that we citizens our purchasing power principally determines the quantity of goods purchased and consumed, meaning that we are proportionally parts of the economy, but problems and policies, within an international and macro context may, in the positive or the negative terms so, determine whether citizens’ lands are or will continue to be termed “valley of economic opportunities.” But today as “high-wage, middle-skilled jobs are vanishing,” to borrow of the words of Mr. Thomas L. Friedman, and governments that have entered into a social contract with their citizens have miserably failed or are incapable of intervening so this particular predicament, that of the poor and middleclass men and women, helps explains why they can no longer be spoken of money as "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty."
Why exactly is the EU the solution? These nations including France were separate countries. They have all the required working parts. President Macron and Prime Minister May just have to get on with and govern their nations the way their predecessors did facing far worse problems. Heads of government like De Gaulle and Churchill faced existential threats.
2
Friedman got one thing right: "average work no longer returns an average wage that can sustain an average middle-class lifestyle." All the current turmoil boils down that. Who would care about gay marriage or immigration if the middle class were not being destroyed? And don't try to tell me that all the increased wealth since the beginning of the century was actually "earned" by the top 10%. There's real theft happening here. But thieves rarely admit their crimes until they're caught. A profound economic realignment is needed. Politicians pay heed.
8
The elites have broken the social contract between the working class and the elites. The elites have created the breakdown worldwide and it all derives from their insatiable greed and their disconnect to their own citizens.
8
Yes, the disturbances in France and elsewhere in Europe are partly the result of globalization and those left behind. But more fundamentally, it is about leadership. As Laurent Mauduit has argued, whether it be Macron, or any other French leader, the governing caste is very thin -- basically the graduates of the ENA and the Grandes Ecoles, who shuttle back and forth between large enterprises and large government. By their nature and training, they do not see or care about those beneath them; these privileged meritocrats ultimately serve themselves, despite their protestations that they give back to society by donating to institutions that serve (but glorify themselves through their generosity) or break ossified traditions that hold back underclasses (vid. the so-called 'sharing economy'). They are a mutually-reinforcing society that occasionally allows newcomers, but only if they subscribe to the caste rules.
Since the rise of yellow vest protests, there have been comparisons with the great protest movement of 1968. There are significant differences, but in one sense it is apt: just as those student protests sought the destruction of old, privileged educational rules and castes, so the yellow vests want to remove the system of pantouflages and rétropantouflages that privileges the oligarchs at the expense of everyone else.
3
Been to Europe many times.
I always wonder , while there , how those countries can survive with so many idle and able adults,...and on weekdays just sitting around with nothing to do.
Either they don't have work, or they are on vacation.
Looks to me very unproductive.
Love it for vacations though.
Positano is amazing!
4
@Joe Paper What are they doing? Perhaps they are enjoying life.
2
@Joe Paper
It's all about wealth distribution. The profit-taking that most Americans never see is vast. The spread between median and mean income or wealth in the US is great. Yes, Positano....
2
"The middle classes that powered the growth of the U.S. and the E.U. in the 20th century were built on something called a “high-wage, middle-skilled job.” But robotics and artificial intelligence and outsourcing and Chinese imports have wiped out a lot of middle-skilled routine white-collar and blue-collar work."
The problem is not only that the middle class was forced to bear the entire brunt of this adjustment but the wealthy were rewarded with substantially lower taxes (Macron didn't do what was right). Consequently the middle and lower middle income wage earners were hit with a double whammy, much lower wages and required to pay for lower tax revenues by cutting their support services and programs. In the meantime the wealthy and big corporations sat back rubbing their fat belies.
I disagree with you, the solution is as simple as a major re-alignment of the tax rates and a reset of governmental spending priorities. Today the top US tax rate on individual earnings is 37%. In the Eisenhower era where we had massive public infrastructure projects that not only provided employment but the platform for investment and growth as well as major expansion of housing and schools the rate was 90%. The rich are obscenely rich at the expense of everyone else.
So think of what is happening throughout the western world presently as a form of creative destruction which may eventually include the use if the guillotine.
7
I'm sure that President Trump is factoring all of these maddeningly corrosive trends and events into his thinking on both global political stability and American Exceptionalism. Isn't it wonderful to have a mind like his at a moment like this?
While Mr. Friedman is usually spot-on, "the need for free-flow immigration to attract new talent and ideas" assumes that the massive flow of immigration (legal and illegal) is a massive flow of coders, IT experts, doctors and university professors. Europe and the US are not battling immigrants with new talent and new ideas. Europe and the US are battling immigrants leaving difficult places and moving to attempt a shot at a better life. However, this search for a better life seems to bring with it demands for jobs, money and education which Europe and the US are having problems with in providing to their own citizens. A dozen Immigrant doctors are not the problem. Thousands of undocumented unskilled poor seeking handouts are the problem. He loses credibility with such absurd statements
18
How have times changed. For years we have been told by Friedman and other liberals that America must be more like Europe. Now Europe's economy is tanking and ours is going to the moon. Lesson learned - beware of Bernie Sanders and the rest of the pro-European acolytes.
4
@SWilliams - I've voted Democrat all my life. I even voted Green a few times. I support gay marriage, abortion rights, environmental protections, etc. Friedman is NOT my idea of a "Liberal". If you would look a little closer I think you would also find few overlaps in the views of Friedman and Sanders.
1
Publishing Mr. Trump's tax returns and using them as the basis of true tax reform might be a partial solution. That the tax code assumes depreciation of commercial real estate should be appalling to all Americans, as a single example. Does anyone else remember the campaign promise to "fix" taxes because he knew all the dodges.
Does anyone remember "investment tax credits"? You had your taxes reduced for increasing your workforce. Not in the hype that you'd hire if you had more money. (remember the billionaire spending $1m to the Russians to get a lift to the space station? That helped the US worker a lot)
Others offer suggestions for solutions, please.
2
Far be it from me to discount the value of a good summary of a state of affairs. Urgently be it upon all of us to call out articles that read like an algorithm could have produced them, especially by media outlets we expect more from, our democracy depends on like little else.
Deploying every cliché and a racy title, Friedman demonstrates little knowledge of his subject, starting with "United Nations of Europe". Aghast at boraded up Paris stores and rioting he is, as though a book on French political culture was never touched. Italy, in talks as we speak to reach an agreement with the EU, not, as Friedman suggests, breaking it up just yet, has historically been far more adherent to EU budgets than France or Germany - something that someone who writes about this should know. Brexit gets uncritical validation as a lie being sold to leavers, as though the lie was ever obscure, a Trump to render an 18th Brummaire quaint but already fizzling at the edges, Macron's actions written up as "all the right things," as though we haven't learned that cutting taxes up and raising them down while slashing (Greek) pensions may not be such a right thing to do.
Of course disintegration and radicalization are all too real and a threat. Large economies have to adapt and reform in profound ways. Confusing things like centralization with supranationalism (look it up, Amerika!) does not help. Friedman seems to have taken little time trying to understand and analyze our global shift.
3
The end of the Union, maybe. The end of Europe, never. Why give such a bombastic headline to an article that otherwise holds itself?
5
Let’s not forget the upside of globalization. i.e. creating opportunities for trade anywhere and with little barriers to entry. I can start a company in front of my computer in my underwear in Switzerland buying from China and selling to the United States. These opportunities were only available to the elite class in the past. Now anyone with some ambition and willingness to work hard can achieve financial independence.
@Filippo - Funny how it works out that, despite all that, the gap between the richest and the poorest is larger than ever before, and that the 2 companies that make what you describe possible, Amazon and Alibaba, are owned in large part by 2 men, one who is now the richest man in the world and the other is very close behind.
6
The premise of the EU is flawed in exactly the same way that the premise of American Big Government is flawed: that all people everywhere are interchangeable cogs, that what Germans, the French, the British, the Italians, and every other "European" wants and needs from government is identical; that what Texans, Californians, Montanans, New Yorkers, and every other species of American want is identical.
This is, on the surface of it, ridiculously false on both sides of the Atlantic. It's obviously not true even within France.
This isn't "The End of Europe." Europe has been around for a couple thousand years and will continue to be around long after the EU collapses under the weight of its false founding premise. The EU and Europe aren't the same thing.
"...the need for economic growth and redistribution, the need to take care of those who have been left behind without burdening future generations, the need for free-flowing borders..."
"Redistribution?" "Take care of those who have been left behind? Those are goals of the Left, not necessarily shared by everyone, and that Mr Friedman proclaims them "needs" reflects his mindset, which in turn reflects his Big Government bias that Big Government EU is necessary to the survival of Europe. That's no more true than the equally false assertion that Big Government is necessary to the survival of the United States.
5
@Henry Miller
Your caricature of 'Big Government' is a nonsensical fiction successfully implanted into the heads of only the most uninformed and credulous of citizens. Newsflash: people are are not completely identical, but they do - unless infected by the absurd American propaganda about self-reliance - share certain basic aspirations that depend on the enactment of policies by government. Would you like (no this is actually a real option!) healthcare free at the point of use? Would you like food uncontaminated through corporate malpractice designed to extract every potential profit? Would you like clean drinking water? Would you like social security in your old age? Would you like to receive some measure of support upon such time as you are made redundant from your job or become to sick to work? If you were made homeless, would you like support structures to be in place? Yes - take care of those who are left behind: this principle is the quintessence of any state operating on sound moral principle rather than the idolatry of selfishness.
1
@David Doney—Yes, but the problem must be seen a global problem, not just a national issue. The rich have been extraordinarily successful at creating and propagating tax havens all over the world—think Panama Papers, the Cayman Islands, Ireland and Luxembourg (if you’re a multinational corporation). No one country can solve this parasitic threat to democracy and the welfare of all. And climate change is very closely related to this: The gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France were protesting an economic issue—higher fuel taxes—that were Macron’s initiative to meet the Paris climate accord.
The only way to stem the tide on all three fronts—economic inequality, climate change, and authoritarianism—is by coming together on an international level to stop tax avoidance and evasion, and create a system where even the wealthiest among us pay their fair share. You’d think they’d be smart enough to realize their own survival depends upon such a system to avoid national and international insurrection and warfare, but I’m not so sure. Therefore, it’s up the rest of us to come with a fair system that works for all and leaves no one behind.
4
Rich people have money, not because of tax loopholes but because of hard work, education and risk taking. This formula is open to all Americans. Contrary to Liz Warren, you did build that, through individual effort.
3
"Having just seen the shocking sight of Parisian stores boarded up right before Christmas to protect against rioting along the Champs-Élysées by some of France’s yellow-vested protesters; after being told in Rome a few days earlier that Italy, a founding member of the E.U., could conceivably shuck off both the E.U. and the euro one day under its new bizarre far-left/far-right governing coalition; after watching Britain become paralyzed over how to commit economic suicide by leaving the E.U.; and after watching President Trump actually cheer for the breakup of the E.U. rather than for its good health, it is obvious to me that we’re at a critical hinge of history. "
Wow. A sentence this pretentious has to explain part of the rise of working class populism.
7
Maybe it is simple and reasonable to expect bloody clashes between education and economic class. In France, Marie Antionette had her head chopped off and Macron might remember those days. Unfortunately, Paris is dependent on tourism and the economic problems grow ominously serious when the hotels and restaurants are empty. Macron might bunk up with Assange at the UK, Ecuadorian Embassy.
1
The coreof the Eurpean Union is no lonher France but Germany. Germany is economically, politically and socially healthy. Do not worry too much of the future of the European Union. It is in much better shapethan the UK and the USA.
2
Better reserve your seat on the next flight to Mars. Democracy and civilization are on the wane, actually on a par with the health of our planet.
No, Thomas "Chicken Little" Friedman, the sky is not falling. The United Kingdom is not committing suicide (whether or not it actually leaves the European Union). France is not in revolution. Russia has little global influence. America has not withdrawn from the world.
During my 60-year lifespan, things have steadily improved. Prosperity and peace continue to improve. And governments have had little to do with improving things. Indeed, governments for the most part make things worse.
The less government, the better. Free societies do better than those subject to strong government control of whatever sort. People are starting to realize that, finally. It's about time. Get on that bandwagon, Thomas Friedman. Instead of continuing to think that you and your elites know better what is good for me and others like me than we do.
5
Globalization and the free market may have reached the point of being mutually exclusive. Capital will always flow to the highest return. Labor will always flow to the lowest cost. Innovation will always follow the largest investment.
In this paradigm, the many will be losers. The few will be winners. We have reached that point in the US and in Europe.
We have become the old world, struggling to keep up in a global market where we cannot compete.
We need a new paradigm, and this paradigm is not pretty. Either scratch globalization or scratch the free market. One cannot have its cake and eat it.
73
@DJ - "Capital will always flow to the highest return..." That's a myth. I once worked as an engineer for one of the wealthiest people in the world. He wasted capital on vanity projects and put his core profitable businesses in what I considered to be unsustainable levels of debt. I left quietly. I don't want to criticize my former employer, he is doing what is normal for people in his position in our modern economy, just on a microscopic scale. Banks give easy credit, and vanity acquisitions give the illusion of wealth because you gain exclusive control with just fractional ownership.
On a more massive scale, we pass massive and unneeded corporate tax cuts. Where does the money go? Into R&D, new products, improved efficiency, better worker wages to promote and retain the best and the brightest? Nope. It goes to waste on shareholder buybacks, bonus packages, and executive gluttony. Imho, we're headed for the greatest depression of the modern era.
36
@DJ "Capital will always flow to the highest return."
Said another way, where there is the least enforced regulation. When was the last time you heard of an American company starting in Switzerland?
7
@DJ
A brilliant and succinct comment. thank you DJ
4
By repeatedly insisting the UK is committing "suicide", Friedman undermines his entire argument, here. No, the UK is not going to vanish from the earth. They'll go through some economic hardship, but assuming the rest of Friedman's analysis is accurate, it may well be worth it to restore full local control of the nation.
Friedman rightly points out that globalization is responsible for the massive disruption in Western societies. People feel powerless in the face of international forces and institutions that have forgotten them. We can't stop the technological advances that have eliminated so many middle-skilled jobs or undo the global economy, but we can give people a sense of power by devolving decisions on how we live our lives to a more local level. That means stronger national sovereignty in Europe and more deference to the states in the U.S.
That doesn't mean we turn our backs on each other. On the contrary. It is precisely when people feel powerless, swept up by events and institutions beyond their control, that they become isolationist. That's the problem we're facing now. But, if people feel in control of at least some part of their lives, they'll feel safer engaging the global village.
5
In case you hadn't noticed, Tom, things are not going well in Europe either.
It looks like the French Government may fall - Macron's approval is somewhere close to the bottom and his policy changes have not ended the Yellow Vest riots. He has even resorted to having Sarkozy attended official even in his name and inviting him for luncheon at the Elysee Palace.
Take a look at Italy - it is pretty much thumbing its nose at Brussels over its budget, and migrations policy. Same thing in Austra. And if you look at Poland and Hungary they are not marching in tune to Brussels wishes.
If I were you I would not be too optimistic about Europe's future --i.e. the EU. Local populations in many countries are coming to realize the Globalism is only beneficial for the elite, and forces the middle class to have a dwindling future.
People are angry about their current situation and see the future as very bleak.
5
Migration was not always a problem. Once it was invited, many times it was invited.
Old Prussia invited Jews and French Huguenots. It actively recruited individual soldiers from the rest of Europe.
The US today also actively recruits non-citizens to be soldiers and sailors. The Navy recruits in the Philippines even as the immigration service struggles to keep out Filipino visa applicants.
The US also actively recruited Mexicans to pick vegetables, so long as they lived like slaves in makeshift tents working for near nothing and then went home again.
Post War Germany actively recruited Turkish laborers, and actively sought to keep them until labor needs shifted.
Mexico invited Americans (Catholics without slaves) to settle Texas. Of course it got non-Catholics with slaves, and then lost Texas, but the point here is they sought immigration, even if the Americans then cheated and stole a huge part of their country.
People now complain about lots of North African Muslims in France, but de Gaulle for Metropolitan France invited them when France freed Algeria.
Immigration is not a problem, it is invited, except for when it is a problem and is not invited. There is no universal here.
2
Who is paying this guy?
Listen to this:
" Having just seen the shocking sight of Parisian stores boarded up right before Christmas to protect against rioting along the Champs-Élysées by some of France’s yellow-vested protesters; after being told in Rome a few days earlier that Italy, a founding member of the E.U., could conceivably shuck off both the E.U. and the euro one day under its new bizarre far-left/far-right governing coalition; after watching Britain become paralyzed over how to commit economic suicide by leaving the E.U.; and after watching President Trump actually cheer for the breakup of the E.U. rather than for its good health..."
I cheer for that!
2
@Name Required
And why would breaking up in small, powerless national units somehow be the best way to defend us against Russia, China, ISIS and climate change ... ?
Any ideas?
What was not mentioned in the column is the reason why Europe has so many immigrants: the fleeing of violence from countries in the Mid-East such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The large wave of refugees that fled the Middle East for Europe a couple of years ago just overwhelmed the governments and societies of the EU countries.
And who started this mess? The U.S. with its invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the mistakes it made after toppling Saddam Hussein's regime. Almost everything bad that has happened in the 15 years since then flows from that monumental display of hubris by Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Bremer, et al.
6
As technology makes production more efficient, the return on investment increases. But it is not being shared fairly. Without higher wages enforced by collective bargaining a realistic tax program is required to take some of that profit and use it to help displaced workers and satisfy the other needs of society. That is not happening now in the US because taxing the rich is the third rail of politics thanks in part to Citizens United. Income inequity is growing. If this isn't reversed, we are all headed for disaster.
2
This idea that Macron is too elitists, does not know the common man, has no understanding of life etc. are the same things many Trump folks said about Obama and Hillary. They even said that they could not understand their speeches with the "fancy language". However, they thought Trump spoke like them, they understood him. As we get more separated with education and more ignorance is promoted we will see more of this division. I have read some biographies where rural , very religious children went to Eastern "elite" schools and suddenly they saw life and politics in a whole different way.Were they brainwashed by the elite? or were they finally given information to make reasonable decisions? Yes, life is changing and those with low skills and poor education will not be able to succeed as before. Government must help these folks but they must understand that it is their responsibility to change habits and life style. Making sure we have adequate schools is the governments job, using these is the job of the individual.
2
Tom, you’re too pessimistic here. After the debacle of Brexit there’s no other EU country heading for the exit. Italy just folded on it’s budget. The benefits of the EU are all too evident. As an Irishman now living in America I have seen how my country has been transformed by EU membership. On the social issues we were the first country, through a referendum, to legalize same sex marriage. And this year, through another referendum, we legalized abortion. This summer I traveled from Paris to St. Petersburg by train and only had to show my Irish passport at the Russian border. Tom, talk to young people. The majority are in favor of free movement of EU citizens within the EU. And my prediction? The United Kingdom government and parliament will bow to pressure and have another referendum. The result will be a majority to remain in the EU. I don’t know how things will work out in the USA but I am confident that the EU will survive and thrive.
3
In the late 20s and early 30s the USA faced a real threat of shifting to Communism because of the abuses of the wealthy class and a perception that the new Soviet Union was going to succeed.
Roosevelt saved our country from that by strong-arming the wealthy into financing the government and its "make work" projects throughout the Depression.
That lesson has been forgotten by those at the top, at their own peril.
5
The problems facing the US, France, the UK and others are global in scale: climate change, terrorism, mass migration, rising inequality, automation, aging populations, resource depletion, etc. There are solutions to these problems; unfortunately they require multilateral cooperation, something which many current governments seem incapable of doing.
For starters, we need multilateral trade agreements that do a better job of addressing intellectual property theft, privacy rights, currency manipulation, etc. The TPP was an attempt that, however flawed, should not have been abandoned. We also need a worldwide effort to eliminate tax havens that allow megacorporations and the ultra rich to avoid paying their fair share. We need to, as a group of developed nations including China (whose economy is quite developed) and Russia, find an effective approach to addressing failed or failing states from Venezuela to Syria, to stem the mass migration of displaced, desperate people and rebuild their shattered countries.
None of this can be done by any one country alone. Trump cannot unilaterally change China's trade practices, no country can take in the millions of refugees. No one country can solve climate change. We can either work together to find solutions, or we will all fall together into chaos.
5
This international lower middle-class and working class uproar can be traced directly to the 2008 financial crash and TARP. Using poor and middle-class peoples money to bail out these haughty CEOs ( who kept their bonuses after almost causing a depression) made it manifestly clear that there are 2 distinct rule-books- one for the wealthy and another for other people.
8
Except that the yellow vest protests were NOT directed against Europe but against Macron, and against his typical "neoliberal" right-wing economic policy that systematically shifts the wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest citizens.
So no, of course this is not the end of Europe. It has nothing to do with Europe and everything with Macron.
6
"Macron is our Louis XVI, and we know what happened to him." Trump and his imported bride Melania are our Louis XVI and his imported bride Marie Antoinette - both not necessarily clueless but cruel - intentionally cruel - to the middle-class poor - forced to give the trumps their only scoop of ice cream so he can have two while Melania will keep their cake too.
"It is going to take extraordinary leadership for the U.S., Britain and the E.U. to come up with a strategy for these grievances." Then the world is finished, 'cause no such leadership exists today.
"highly centralized countries will fare much worse" - Don't tell that to China.
2
Brexit may be a suicide note for the UK but Trump is the suicide note for the US. All signed by people who were too lazy to figure out the implications of their vote.
3
Friedman, ever the court astrologer for the 1% gullibley believes that the economic advantages of the so called "high skill" elite are earned. They are not. The game is rigged and it's high time the so called elite are called on it.
7
The greedy rich people around the world are to blame for our ills. The masses have become their slaves. They exploit everything on the earth as they divide and conquer humanity. There needs to be a revolution or things will only get worse for the middle class and poor. The rich won't give up easily. It will get violent and messy, but unfortunately that is what it will take to fight for equality and decency. Glad I'm not starting out in life now.
2
.... since World War II, the "liberal global order" that has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history ....
That's the short-term view.
A longer view of history reveals the US and EU countries created the "liberal global order" by systematically decimating much of the rest of the world and peoples over 600 years of wars and pillage, raping most other countries, who were in bondage while they stole their resources and human capital. Europe and the US are prosperous today by the sweat and blood of many millions of people.
Now the EU and the US enjoyed such freedoms and their societies are wealthy beyond all reason. That they now must choose to redistribute a pittance of their prosperity among their own less fortunate or to dying refugees coming to their shores should not be viewed as generosity.
It is the imperative of the now "woke" world population demanding what is rightfully theirs.
2
@BeTheChange So obviously the solution is for the US and Europe to commit cultural and national suicide?? Somehow I don't think that will be a popular position in most electorates.
I can't speak for other readers of this column but as for me, I've reached news exhaustion. I don't care what happens to Europe or any of the countries that make it up, including France and the UK. We have our own problems here, not the least of which is Donnie "Boy" Trumpty Dumpty, who'd like to be dictator, and the Republican party that's doing everything it can to destroy democracy. So, Europe, you're on your own. Don't expect any help from us.
San Francisco a superstar city? Mr. Friedman, it is not a superstar city. San Francisco is no kind of model for living. It is a gated community for the wealthy. It is a ludicrous Disneyland of distorted economics, and it has been for many, many years and the same is true for many other cities.
5
More like if Macron fails it can bring a new Europe, one where the faceless bureaucrats are relegated to the sidelines and the populace will have real representation. Start by saying goodbye to immigrants overrunning their countries,
5
What happens when the means of labor no longer require laborers and the means of labor are owned by private capitalists?
Any sensible capitalist with a survival instinct should see this is not going to end well.
2
Maybe I will be showing a complete lack of empathy but, accusing the top for being heartless and lining up first to taking double helpings at the trough is certainly true but what about the people at the bottom?
Aren't they out of touch also? I still do not understand how a schooling system, if properly taken advantage, does not peripherally teach you to strive for better and be alert to the fact that nothing is ever the same.
There is plenty of blame to go around but for the masses to buy into demagoguery is unforgivable.
EVERYBODY is responsible for the blowing up of the budgets, namely the top AND the middle AND the bottom!
Let us have mindless revolutions and wars. Stupidity and greed run supreme!
@BG There has been a conscious agenda of devaluing labor through immigration and outsourcing pursued since the end of the Cold War, along with a cultural revolution that's been going on since the 1960s. That is the core of it.
3
a leader without followers, and massive numbers of leaderless followers: sounds like a perfect recipe for a fascist takeover.
2
Fantastic article summing it all up perfectly. Being a German, I have experienced project “globalization” from the nineties onwards. This was the answer to then economic stagnation. We just postponed it until today, by outsourcing our own middle class. There have been no substantial solutions or even actual attemps to the basic underlying structural problem described in this article. Only a machine, robot and advertising tax will save the middle class. Big international companies have become gigantically standardising and compressing elements that suck up all capital while socializing their failures. Take biology: you will not find a multitude of species in a standardized environment. In other words: when every human wants a brand of cola, there is no space for alternatives economically. We thus need to tax the consolidation of global wishes.
3
@Felix Taxes solve nothing, unless they are applied to the user of cheap labor, in order to discourage it. Allowing the practices to continue while merely taxing them does not solve the problems.
If only we wage earners would just get out of the way and let the technocrats and global capitalists who hire them re-make our politics, societies, and economies. We would soon all be living in a free market global paradise!
hahahaHAHAHAhahaha
"Macron, by contrast, dared to do the right things to unlock growth in France...
Macron pushed through four vital structural fixes that fostered growth: pro-investment tax reforms, reduced pensions for the bloated railway union, relaxed labor rules to make it easier to fire and hire workers, and big new public investments in skills and education for the most disadvantaged."
1
Not just the end of Europe.
We already have the means of production to feed and house all of humanity while only using half the human resources to do so.
Wages are stagnant and unemployment stats show a distorted view of reality, hiding sub-employment, the gig economy and the hoplesness.
This is an amazing opportunity for humanity to revise the social paradigm. No longer work for subsistence but work for fulfillment.
But unless our politicians start discussing this, it will be the end of Europe. And I add, the end of the world as we know it.
3
Opportunity knocks for new paradigms for living. We were always thinking that someday machines would do our work. Society has to adapt to allow for quality of life for all. New ideas are needed.
2
@Phyllis Mazik That's science fiction. Meanwhile, reality still exists. As time goes on, it becomes more clear how thoroughly progressivism is based on outright delusion.
1
@Joe. Thanks Joe. But cell phones, DNA technology, robots, driverless cars and travel to Mars are science fiction too.
Lots of suggestions but where do we start it off? What are the first people INCLUSIVE steps?
This repair will not occur in one fell swoop and it doesn't sound like there is any patience available.
So let's call it, this is the birth pain of 21st century.
Every century when it starts in first decade looks more previous century's extension. when 20th century started two important cataclysmic change was just waiting their catapulting effect on the fate of the incoming century: Electric and internal combustion engine. Everything changed around 1910-20's, 19th century faded.
What become so critical in this early moment WWI signaled birth of 20th century would be very very painful, than followed WWII. In fact it was bloody painful.
Yes , 21st century first birth pain is here 2010's clearly showed us the change and with 20th century mentality (who was born before 2000 ) living generations are in revolt and full uprising. Clearly 21st century is not working for 20th century people, 20th century didn't work for 19th century either but lesson never reached the masses. Because this lesson is long, detailed and extremely boring. but it is very important. The people belong to previous century ( 20th and 19th ) 90% oblivious to their fate.
Todays new generation doesn't exactly seeks steady job, retirement , health insurance or formal education, it may not be very clear to us 20th century people tehir mind set but this is what is happening, this is a nightmare for any person who was born in 20th century.
it is like day and night.
20th century ended 18 years ago , change is on its way and you (masses of 20th century ) cannot do anything.
1
I like the part that explains that there is a leader with no followers and followers with no leader.
2
The United States shall lead and show Europe the way to be European. Chuckle, chuckle.
What if the Trump administration's lasting legacy is to show Europe a path to freedom, that does not include mass migration or ridiculous taxes to stop global climate change?
Sounds like a plan to me.
2
Like all Friedman's columns, this one portrays a certain "future" as inevitable and essentially beyond anyone's control: Whether you like it or not, you are going to get a future of robotics, artificial intelligence, "free-flowing borders," and "nimble cities" (whatever those are).
What if the people just don't want that? Behind all the futurist techno-mumbo-jumbo, most of the most celebrated technological developments seem profoundly underwhelming. Take "ride-sharing": It is not like it took some Silicon Valley-based geniuses to come up with the idea that you could use your phone to get a car to come pick you up. It is known as "calling a cab," and it has existed for about a century.
If I'm trading off stable employment for a life of unstable jobs in the "gig economy," and the only supposed benefit I get from this trade is some dumb "app," maybe my answer is: No thank you. Not worth it.
8
If this is the end of Europe, The Ft Sumter of Europe was without a doubt The Refugee Chancellors irresponsible immigration policies.
She invited anyone who wanted to come to Europe... changing the very definition of "refugee" ... without a plan to feed, clothe, police and integrate them into modern society, in what was the biggest political blunder since Germany tried to invade France in WW1
It pretty much changed Europe from Great Britain to France, to Italy to Greece to Poland and beyond
9
Too many Americans with too few clues.
2
I remember when the POTUS was referred to as the "leader of the free world". I have not heard or seen this term applied to POTUS for a number of years. By electing Donald Trump to be POTUS , the U.S. is now part of many problems worldwide rather then being part of the solutions .
2
‘Diversity’ works up to a point...until the cacophony of too many competing interests leads to chaos....which is what we have now.
4
As usual Mr. Friedman has it wrong. It is not the techserfs that middle America despises, it is the arrogant members of the media and academia and their contemptuous attitude toward this country and its history that angers them.
7
Friedman didn't see this coming though. Various nationalists, either of the right wing or left wing variety did. Buchanan for example predicted this sort of disorder. While Buchanan was sounding alarms, Friedman was busy writing about olive trees and Lexuses and telling us what his "friends in Singapore" thought.
Well water under the bridge. Nationalism matters. Jobs matters. Borders matter. How do people in Europe and North America ensure that their native born, and especially their middle class/working class have a decent shot at well paid jobs?
6
And didn't Putin swing the Brexit vote to weaken Europe?
1
End of Europe?? Could have done with a better title - if Europe survived WW-II and the plague - it will survive a human created system. Try "End of European Union?" for next time. Nothing really is the end of the world till the sun has died out.
2
Tom, of course, is a #Resistance leader at a #Resistance publication. But even #Resistance forces need to operate in reality. As such, I take issue with Tom's lazy, liberal statement that "America is withdrawing from the world". What evidence does he have of this? Compared with his feckless predecessor, the current President has increased the pace of patrols in the South China Sea, armed the Ukrainians against Russian expansionism, engaged mercantilist China and its rapacious trade policy and disengaged from anti-American and anti-Israeli agreements like the Paris Accord and the Iran nuclear deal. So again, Tom, what withdrawal? Undoing 8 years of national security damage is not withdrawal, its a needed antidote to the incompetence of the last Administration.
3
@Achilles You forgot essentially eliminating ISIS in his first 100 days. Like the media wants everyone to.
3
Something in this piece by Mr Friedman has me thinking that he has a problem similar to that of President Macron...
An arrogant misunderstanding of that which the rank-and-file actually want...
They want to live their lives as they have been living it, not being dictated to by "elites" who haven't a clue as to what consent of the governed actually means.
Thomas would fit well in Macron's circle.
8
Your inspiring analysis made us think in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When she started her campaign, her main competitor decided that he didn't need to make any special effort, because 1. She was too young, 2. She didn't have the connections to the leaders of the Democratc Party he has, 3. She sounds, transpires, and talks as a poor, and an immigrant. Just for starters
In synthesis he didn't conduct any reasearch among his constituents and for that reason he was defeated. Yes, just for failing to investigate what was happening with Alexandria's promises and proposals.
The name of that problem is arrogance. Sport kIngs can be arrogant, politicians no.
When a politician is elected the most usual reaction of the winner is, " I am the greatest, most beautiful, excellent and deserving person in the whole wide world. As a matter of fact I am a genius."
No, in a democracy you have to be in constant contact with the People, yes with capital letters.
The British People is not interested anymore in Brexit. But arrogance doesn't allow their politicians to conduct a new plebiscite.
Yes, Macron finally reacted well. But he has to maintain contact with his People. Constantly. Urgently.
Yes, Europe should be saved.
Yes, Sport Kings can be arrogant: https://youtu.be/RshehRyCVo4
There won't be national solutions to these problems like there were in the past, because the people pushing for globalism today have changed the political calculus.
Back when our leading nations were still ethnically and culturally homogenous, the globalists' marginal material gains, cheap labor, and culinary diversity seemed like a good deal. Fast forward 40 years, and we're seeing the downsides of the bargain; shootings at Christmas markets, grooming gangs in the UK, a skyrocketing rape rate in Sweden, and an unabated flow of poor third world migrants towards our borders and homes, which we're told by our "elite" and respectable leaders either don't exist, don't matter, or should be embraced! It's madness!
So of course we're going to revolt, and break your nice things, and run you and your political candidates out of town. Be they Bushes, Clintons, Macrons, or just garden variety diversity-tokens like Stacey Abrams down here in Georgia, we're sending them packing.
And this won't stop. It's only getting started. The real question is this; at what point do you deluded and middlebrow chattering classes step back from pushing open borders and the destruction of national identities? As you're being deported to China or Singapore? As the crowds gather at your homes? As you're being walked to the gallows? Seriously, apart from Louis XIV, have we ever had a class of "elites" who were so delusional about their own sense of competence and being right?
8
Such an articulate essay deserves a response.
Better to engage change than to dig your heels in, especially when change is utterly inevitable. Borders and national identities will never again be what they used to be.
You may be able to forestall the utopian ideas of the internationalists, but neither will you get the past that you seem to want to resurrect. The most that you - or they - can do, if dug in, is to make things worse for everyone. In a sense, you and they may be two sides of the same coin, and both had best engage with reality.
2
@Trans Cat Mom
Up-vote times infinity!
The elites are so sheltered in their protective bubbles they can't see past their down-pointed noses. The certainty! The preaching! It's unreal. Do they inhabit the same planet as we unwashed masses? The two sides have never been farther apart.
3
@Trans Cat Mom
Very well said. Wonder if anyone can give an answer half as eloquent.
1
We "are at a critical hinge of history" - - all while our president is UNhinged.
Thanks, Mr. F. for your usual comprehensive and thought-provoking opinion. It is enough to cause us to pull the covers over our head in despair at the state of the western world.
In France the prospect of problems was there from the start. A new national political group takes power with no local or regional power bases. A formula for problems.
In Germany, we and our WW II allies (sensibly at the time) turned the Germans into inward looking inoffensive worker bees and entrepreneurs. Lead Europe with France but not too bombastically or confidently lest some here have panic attacks about the "Teutonic" threat. Now the Germans may be the last country standing in Europe, and wouldn't that be ironic.
The UK situation is not entirely their fault. It takes two to negotiate, and the EU has been as tough and unreasonable as possible. The left opposition in the UK has no plan of its own other than to profit from the government's pain, and the country's possible economic downfall. Agreed, Thomas that UK Tories Boris Johnson and Rees-Mogg and company are bombastic disasters and in the former case a con man.
There are green shoots, though ignored by the Gray Lady so far. In Hungary, the land of autocratic nationalist Orban and party, thousands have been in the streets for 4 straight weeks in opposition to the Bannon endorsed nationalist autocrats leading that country. Hope springs eternal, but you have to look for it.
1
“As the memory of World War II, the Holocaust and the Gulag fades, so too does the antipathy to the illiberal ideologies that spawned Europe’s past horrors. This is evidenced in the rising electoral success of populist authoritarian parties of the extreme left and right, none of which have anything new to say, yet claim the mantle of ideological innovation and moral virtue.” James Kirchick, “The End of Europe”
2
The end is near? Again?
World leaders, and the corporations that write their checks and that hold our western economies hostage, all sold us globalism as a magical cure-all... a cure to warfare, a cure to insularity, a cure to worries about growth and conflict. Also, one assumes, it also would help with your arthritis, maybe? And make pigs fly?
But globalism is and was no cure-all; it was just another poison, sweet tasting at first but no less toxic. Right now? We're in the purging phase, typically exemplified by intense vomiting in response to said poisoning. It'll take more than mouthwash and some activated charcoal to clean up this mess.
5
In the proverbial nutshell here is the essence of Mr. Friedman's article (and thinking): competition, and more competition, and the more 'nimble' the better.
And that's where he ALWAYS misses the boat!
It's about dignity, fairness, freedom, moderation and compassion and cooperation. Always has been and always will be...
Friedman is a true journalistic dinosaur.
4
“ … the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas …”
Canada has very few illegal immigrants and it accepts most of its legal immigrants on the basis of merit. Applicants receive points for being well-educated and having skills that would benefit the Canadian economy, for knowing English and/or French, and for being able to quickly assimilate.
The U.S. has millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom have little education and no special skills. In fact, they compete with our own citizens for unskilled and low skilled jobs. Most of their children come to school needing all kinds of extra help in everything from learning English to kindergarten readiness, and many continue to require extra help throughout their school years.
The PEW Hispanic Trust estimates the number of illegal immigrants at about 11 million. Using new streams of data, professors at the Yale School of Management say the number could be as high as 29 million. Everyone of these people requires an inordinate amount of government services.
Also in contrast to Canada, the U.S. accepts most of its legal immigrants on kinship alone. It ignores the applicants’ education, skill, language fluency, or ability to quickly assimilate.
Rather than free-flowing borders, we need to carefully decide who may move here.
9
EU will survive. Not sure about Euro.
The situation is pretty obvious when Thomas Friedman gets it mostly right! Though he couldn't resist his old mantra, "... the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas" or his celebration of robotics, artificial intelligence and other gifts of our jet-set, 'new frontier'. His only solution here was his tired, 'nimbleness' theme. Friedman clearly does not understand the problem. The MEDIAN household in America can not rely on freelance work, consulting fees, and other opportunistic spoils. The education required to allow this kind of constructive adaptiveness is obviously not feasible for most Americans - and probably not even possible. Adaptiveness and opportunism, by definition, depend on others (in fact, MOST others) NOT being adaptive or opportunistic. And between worldwide social networks, software design and AI, the commercial value of post-graduate education is not what it was. (Higher education has become a government-supported racket.) Encouraging our workers and citizens to act like colonizing weeds in an abadoned lot and loose their adapted skills/traits will not produce a long-term "stable strategy". We have to design our economic network around our workers - not the other way around (and shouldn't be tricked by "buggy whip" straw men). We have considerable and unique cultural and natural resources that we should utilize and protect. Other countries should find their niches, as well. "Pasteurization and homogenization" is not the solution.
4
@carl bumba
Leaving aside the inequities resulting from the U.S.'s corporate welfare and effectively regressive tax structure "designing our economic network around the workers " is does not address the basic economic constraint of worldwide competition . U.S. labor is in competition with automation, both domestic and foreign, as well as foreign labor. Pandora's box has been opened and the two demons cannot be confined again .
@Charles
Thanks. The massive demographic (and air pollution) changes in China demonstrate that there are still plenty of non-automated jobs involved. Fortuately, we have the resources to NOT need to out-compete the world's workforces. Which we don't do, anyway. Also, we don't need to relax our environmental standards to the world's lowest bidders'. Our access to extremely cheap consumer goods might suffer - a trade-off.
And why is it always "The Workers" who are asked to sacrifice so the elites can continue their comfortable existence?
Maybe the capitalists should you know, contribute (TAXES) like the rest of us are expected to. And sacrifice a bit. Too mauch of the obscene wealth being "created" is being pumped into the pockets of to few, and the beneficiaries of those policies seem to think diverting the workers angst is a good idea.
This will not end well for any of us.
2
The thing that is annoying for an American that decided to move to Europe, twenty years ago, and still believes that Europe is a great place to live (in spite of some problems), and a place with a bright future, is all the dire predictions about Europe.
Two years ago the Greeks were withdrawing as many Euros as they could, and putting them away in a safe place, and people like Paul Krugman were writing about "the failure of the Euro".
Less talk about "the Euros crisis" these days. No "ooops" from Paul Krugman.
The French spend a lot of time fighting over the size of their slice of the pie. Usually it is strikes. It's normal and no big deal.
And no reason to write a column about "the End of Europe".
As near as I can see, this column, it is jealous nonsense.
3
It is surprising how much Friedman finally grasps in the first half of this article about why these trends are occurring. He accurately diagnoses the issues to a large degree.
But there is one core fact of reality that the left, from establishment to activists, remains in near-complete denial about. That is the fact that in the US, and in many other countries, the last ten years, economically, have been the worst ten years since the Great Depression.
That's not a matter of subjective opinion. It's a statistical fact. And yet, because Barack Obama was in the White House, Democrats of all stripes, the media, and the few economic elites who did well after the bailouts, convinced themselves that economic reality wasn't really so bad. That's not even counting the hard left that thinks economic growth isn't even a desirable goal.
That denial, pretending everything was fine, was one of the primary assertions of Hillary Clinton's campaign. And anyone who didn't bow to the Emperor's New Clothes was not only a frivolous whiner, but also a "deplorable" bigot who deserved whatever they got.
This was Marie Antoinette territory. And as events show, it is not confined to the US. Until the people who feel threatened by Trump, Brexit, etc. humble themselves, admit their massive failures and mistakes, and aquiant themselves with reality, with a willingness to actually change their agenda, the tide will continue to turn against them.
4
"Disconnecting in a connected world is nuts." I quit Facebook last year, and cannot say I miss it. Connectivity, to a bunch of editorializing and moralizing ghosts who are no longer in my life, was driving me nuts. Quitting Facebook, living more in the immediate world of real spaces and less in the virtual world of cyberspace, was a way of re-grounding my social life. I've become more productive and happier.
Does this extrapolate to nation-states? Obviously there are a lot of difficulties in scaling it up this way. But Friedman presents a false choice -- and demands a kind of alienation that people shouldn't be expected to tolerate. The challenge is to recreate new networks and institutions that are less arrogantly normative, more responsive to popular sensitivities and humbly aware that their legitimacy stems from the consent of the government. There's a need to overcome social isolation and make sensuous, material goods and vibrant, sustaining community more widely available. This will require a rejection of divisive moralizing rhetoric (this has largely replaced the traditional focus on class difference and redistributionist politics on the Left), which more effectively excludes people from access to power nowadays than does the atavistic bigotry of Trump or anyone else.
But a return to classic Leftist politics threatens capital accumulation and the fortune of Thomas Friedman, billionaire. Better then to portray the dispossessed as neo-Luddites, bigots, and fascists.
1
The End of Europe? No. It's the beginning of New Europe. The people of European countries will vote or protest their way to a better tomorrow sans EU parliament.
2
Everyone talks of taxes, which is money collected by the government and then spent by the direction of the government. Taxes are necessary, but I think a more effective regulation would be if government established sound standards in wages in relation to profits and the size of companies. Capital is the life blood of society and having more of it redistributed broadly and directly to people through wages, will lead to a much more equitable and representational society. This could then lead to such things as smaller, autonomous communities in which many services are provided by smaller localized business. This necessary shift in government's role to set standards in wages can happen if the general public would come together to vote for law makers that actually have everyone's interest at heart.
1
This protest is so French, to the barricades they go singing and burning tires. It will die out shortly. Macron beat a hasty retreat from, what many say were needed changes in the work rules that have been blamed for slow growth. What those rules have produced is workers with a jobs for life, retirement at 60 or earlier, with pensions adequate to provide an apartment in Roses(Spain) and great healthcare. Who wants to give those benefits up? The end of European unity, I doubt it. A return to the Franc, reinstatement of National borders, custom stops and money changers every hundred miles. Limited mobility for European workers. Now they can easily move from one country to another to follow the jobs without hassle. Just who wants to return to those old days? Not too many, I think.
1
This is such a complex problem it defies any simple solution. I think of FDR facing the devastation of the great depression. FDR tried several things at once. The New Deal for that reason had a helter skelter quality but he understood something Macrom may not:.the leader must do so,something. FDR brought in people who often violently disagreed with each other. This is most visible with the policies of the first hundred days. There were conservative bankers who believed the federal budget must be balanced and the gold standard preserved (it restricted the amount of money available for investment.) We finally went off it in 1934. There were men who were impressed by the Soviet five year plans. They thought Big Business could no longer be trusted to lead the economy. They thought the federal government should do it. Their thinking is best represented by the TVA act of 1933 which attempted to plan the economy of a seven state region. There many others who voiced ideas in the hundred days--labor leaders, those like Henry Wallace who seemed to care the most about farmers. I am not sure how well Macron could follow FDR's leadership example. But he does need to try. He needs to surround himself with a true diversity of thought. Here's hoping he succeeds.
5
You complain of people wanting to get out of the European bureaucracy, yet in complaining there's not one mention of the costs involved that directly led to it, and which is the cause of France's current unrest. Many European bureaucrats now earn 20,000 euros a month. They can give themselves a raise whenever they like apparently, and often get to hire their family members to add to the wealth. Meanwhile, those who pay those wages in taxes, and every stage of sale in VAT, have seen no raises or scant raises for years and struggle from paycheck to paycheck. And Americans are shocked people want to exit Europe and are rioting? Britain is the 3rd or 4th biggest contributor to the European Union - depending on where you look. The average Brit is not that rich. If they'd had a share in the wealth, just a little, perhaps Brexit might not have occurred. Brexit was their way of doing what the French are now doing.
4
What Mr.Friedman writes about the problems with centralized planning and decision making applies equally well to our own country. The concentration of decision making in Washington has led to greater polarization in the land. Washington is great as a generator of funding because the central government can have a deficit and engage in deficit spending. The states do not have this luxury.
On the other hand, the rules that Washington sets, and the programs that it preferentially funds (often with the guidance of well-placed lobbyists who only have to be located in one place rather than 50 State capitals), lack the granularity of need at the local level.
In my 81 years, I have seen the federal government promise the “end of poverty” and “nationally accountable schools”—but the only real changes (for the good) have been developed locally by changes in the Mayor in places like Boston, Pittsburgh, NYC and DC. The other side of the coin has been the on-going failure of corrupt or inept leadership in places like Baltimore and Detroit. Change needs to engage people on the ground. The “War on Poverty” ignored African American churches and other faith communities in rural areas. Individual schools, and student performance, can be changed by parental engagement-as proposed years ago by the child psychiatrist James Comey.
We urgently need a devolution of decision making as envisioned by the Constitution.
2
I believe Friedman is mistaken regarding Germany's and Frances's respect for EU rules on budget deficits. Their example of failing to abide by the rules encouraged countries like Greece and Italy, who could not deal with such deficits, to get over their heads with debt.
1
All of the liberals in the comments section are lumping Trump and Macron together, and all of the conservatives are holding Macron up as an example of Liberal failures. Everyone seems to embrace some form of radicalism. Everyone wants to overthrow the old order. But didn't we try that already? Macron's election put a brand new, untested political party in charge of France. America's Republican Party put a brand new, untested politician in charge who promised radical changes to the framework of our country. What was the result in France and the USA? Tax cuts for the rich. They embraced the goal of gutting welfare for the poor in order to provide welfare to corporations. Doesn't it seem a bit odd that these radical new politicians are backed and endorsed by the same wealthy elites who used to funnel their wealth into protecting the "old order"? Does it ever occur to you as strange that the politicians who promise us revolutionary change happen to be funded by the exact same billionaires and corporate masterminds who funded the old political leadership? These wealthy elites are in fact perfectly content with the status quo. The only things that bother them are the taxes they have to pay and the pesky labor laws that bind their hands. Wealthy elites have mastered the strategy of boosting politicians who claim to support the poor and promise to overthrow the wealthy elites. Never trust a fresh-faced politician who promises radical changes.
2
The EU has been a financial (banking) endeavor from the start.
Imagine the USA joining with Mexico and all the Central American countries, with no accounting made for language, culture, or history.
The last time Europe was so united under one regime was during the Roman Empire.
3
Don't forget that the GOP is likely out of the executive branch in 2020 and will once again be a global leader. The Dems control the House, so there are finally adults back in the room to try to reign in Trump. I have hope that things in the US will turn around. As for Europe, the US cannot solve their problems when we can barely solve ours, but the US should be back to being a world leader once Trump is out. I just hope the world will wait on us.
4
Excellent analysis! Mr Friedman is spot on. The West should rather group together to tackle the many challenges. To withdraw from anything that looks remotely multi-lateral is most definitely the wrong approach. But sadly the White House is doing everything to divide its allies. Who is the likely winner? Not the US. Why is nobody telling the president? Or is he really totally resistent to advice? I can’t believe that all the guys around him share his ideas. Unless, of course, it is their ideas, and the president is simply their spokesperson.
The Articles of Federation didn't work either. Maybe the discord will lead to the USE perhaps smaller but more united. A USE would be Putin worse nightmare and what Putin's Russia deserves.
Stupid. It is the economy.
This is the problem of wealth distribution - see this picture
In the last 30 years, the world created $3 trillion new wealth. Great!
The poorest 10% got about 30% of the pie (the new wealth) and become middle class (look at the Chinese). Great!
The top 2% riches got about 50% of the pie. Wonderfully Great!
The middle class (between 11 - 98%) got 20% of the pie. ----No wonder we have Trump, Brexit, Yellow Vest movement, anti-immigrant movement, nationalism...
All the technology advance benefit the riches the most. The middle class? just a bunch of consumers / sheep to be fleeced.
How unfortunate.
6
I'm not writing Europe off yet. They've had to deal with Nazis and Communists in their time and are now getting their fill of Trump. I believe they''ll continue to muddle along for a while, but come out OK in the end, which is more than I can say of us, unless and until we can rid ourselves of Trump.
4
This clear article should be of great interest to all Times readers preoccupied by international events directly connected to key economic and social issues in United States. I am surprised at the resulting paucity of comments.
2
The same author who was peddling the fantasy that technology, offshoring, and open markets would save us all in books like The Lexus and The Olive Tree and The World Is Flat is now shocked, shocked, shocked to see the overdue backlash.
Of course, platitudes die hard for know-it-all Times columnists, so Friedman keeps peddling the same duh-observations as judiciousness:
[The West] has to balance the need for economic growth and redistribution, the need to take care of those who have been left behind without burdening future generations, the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas, and the need to prevent people from feeling like strangers in their own homes.
The cliche "easier said than done" has never been more apt.
Then there's this insightful bon mot from one of Friedman's French insider sources: "Macron, by contrast, dared to do the right things to unlock growth in France, at the right time, 'but he did not understand the difference between being right and doing it right,' a French economist, Ludovic Subran, told me." Any observer can make that point about almost any actor in any walk of life. One's ideas not only have to be right, but one has to implement them in the right way? Well, you don't say.
The fact that he refers to a San Francisco overrun by an inequality-fueled homeless crisis, and a drab, jittery London as superstar cities demonstrate that despite his urgent tone Friedman hasn't learned a thing.
8
"Ever since World War II, the liberal global order...has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history...."
Correction: The liberal global order spread freedom and prosperity for about 30 years after the war. Then came the advent of "shareholder capitalism," a mechanism by which this once widely shared prosperity was gradually siphoned off and awarded to an increasingly smaller number of high-net-worth individuals and stateless corporate "persons."
It's hard to see how the US, Britain, and the EU are going to be able to address this problem while their governments remain in thrall to people who would rather dig themselves bunkers in New Zealand than pay one more penny in taxes or middle-class salaries.
9
Sigh!
I'm going to be 69 years old next month. I would like to share my life experiences regarding family finances.
When I and my sister were still young my mother manages and 36 apartment unit for the salary of rent. She did that until my sister was in 7th grade. She didn't get benefits of any kind. She was on 24-hour 7-days a week and if she decided to take a vacation she had to find some one who would take over her job responsibilities while she was away. Guess who paid that person.
Meanwhile my dad was a milkman. The guy who got up at 3am and stocked his milk truck and then spent the next 9 hours delivering milk and milk products to farms and workers including corner markets far out in the countryside.
Together they made 12K a year. That was in 1966. By 1968 Mom & Pop corner markets were over taken by Corporations, such as Southland's 7-11. By 1978 nobody bought car parts at dealerships, we used Chief Auto Parts, and for Food Big MARKETS like Kroeger. And with 3 children under the age of 10 and 2 adults working we were eating SOS and pancakes after the 16th every month except May or June when we got our income tax returns. So many of us returned to college and trade school were able to keep afloat until the Great Bush Recession. Very few of us were able to recover that and college/trade school won't make up the difference at this point. Companies that replace employees with Robots need to be be paying Robot Tax for 10 years for each Robot.
7
The problems we face are much too big and complex to rely on cities or regions. Only nations, acting together under very good leaders, have a chance. A giant hill to climb.
Explaining problems in Europe, Tom Friedman says: "public housing in Paris today is dominated by immigrants......."
For all his many warts and horrendous flaws, there is one thing that Trump has made a front-and-center issue, which is the problem of ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Although I do not like his tactics, he does highlight a problem we need to resolve. For a telling example, just look at what unchecked immigration has done to Germany's political system.
Democrats are missing a HUGE opportunity to work with Trump and Republicans to do comprehensive immigration reform NOW! Perhaps that would involve funding Trump's Wall, but wouln't that be a small price to pay for comprehensive immigration reform legislation?
9
The trend that is undermining democracies across the globe is the transition from a capitalist system where competition reigns to a monopolistic system which gets away with charging whatever the system can bear for necessities. Here in the US, enforced competition limited corporate earnings to 5% of sales from 1948-1972. Since then, the federal governments lax enforcement has allowed monopolies and oligopolies to re-form, resulting in a steady rise in corporate margins to 13% of sales today.
The corresponding loss in working family purchasing power is $20,000/Year for a working family with two workers. It is this economic squeeze on working families that has destroyed the political center, fostered increased radicalism and given demagogues traction.
3
I, respectfully disagree. The impetus for the Yellow Vesters protests was increases in taxes. The middle class feels that they earn too much to qualify for social benefits, but find it hard to make ends meet when taxes are raised to provide those benefits to others.
The immigrant issue is what spurred Brexit. The people of Great Britain saw what was happening in other western European countries and didn't want the same problems. Poor Muslim immigrants, especially young people, who had no jobs became frustrated with their lives and turned to violence. Such has been the case in France and Germany, one reason why Angela Merkel has decided to leave.
For the EU, the primary issue is that no one considered the effects of giving up sovereignty in return for economic health. A country's right to determine who gets in is fundamental to its existence. When EU policy forced members to accept immigrants from Syria and Afghanistan, it was only a matter of time before problems arose. These countries were just coming out of the global recession and had neither the financial resources nor thriving economies with jobs to offer.
To make this about white people hating people of color is bigoted and factually incorrect.
7
Good article, overall, but the premise of decentralization being fundamental is a total red herring.
Remember the Minitel? France's effort to jump start their computer industry in the 80's by putting a little modem-screen device on every home phone line. Probably failed but who knows?
With their massive electric grid, the French should be jump starting their electric auto industry to cut emissions rather than imposing a regressive diesel tax. Tax the rich but give them an electric DS and build the electric Deux Chevaux. A real Louis would draw the wealthy to him with better bling than a crude tax break. The real French tradition is to make the best things in life affordable for all.
People need short-term rewards to choose the best long-term plans. A fuel tax will hit you today. Conversely, cheap gas is Trump's way of shutting us up while he works on the long-term looting of our resources and stifling of our greatest asset: creativity.
> fantasy Brexit ... Disconnecting in a connected world is nuts
Yep, because leaving the world's largest free-trade area, so as to elect and eject your own government is so ... 1776.
The EU needs to be destroyed. It is a completely anti-democratic bureaucracy of elitist that is accountable to no one yet controls the lives of individuals in its member states. Now they are calling for the formation of an EU army - again, not accountable to anyone through a vote. The EU is the greatest threat to democracy the world has ever seen. Destroy it!
4
Ever notice how often global one-percenters are shown in media spots wearing sweaters and drinking coffee while they smugly gaze into the distance (or maybe it's the future), a relaxed smile on their face?
Of course, these actors and models are probably working for scale. Yet I have to wonder: will the future be cold, and will it be without coffee and warm sweaters?
Liberal order yes, neliberal order no! That‘s what the protests in France, Belgium and even Italy are about. I‘m gald to see that finally someone is going to the streets to challenge the Neoliberalism that marks the beginning and not the end of Europe in world. I expect Britain will be next.
Now we just need to US to shape up a bit, but I‘m hopeful that will happen too, when looking ad some of the new, young faces in Democratic party.
1
Mr Friedman, you analysis is unfortunately right on the nail. It takes your global perspective to frame the issues so well. The current stakes in France are really high not only for French democracy but also for Europe's cohesion and peaceful future. It's difficult to be optimistic given the dynamics at play. Let's hope Macron can adjust its policies's social focus and his communication style. Governing is goins to be now more about EQ than IQ. And if only America's presidency could stop adding fuel to the fire of European's fragmentation!
Your opinion piece needs to be be translated and published in France.
1
It is interesting in Ohio where they have torn factories down if you drive a few minutes into Amish country suddenly all the global problems seem to evaporate. I would suggest that a great problem is global materialism. Do I really need a pair of $200 jeans manufactured in Bangladesh? The Amish grow their own food, trade with locals, produce more than they need, make their own clothes, build houses together, and they are not worried about a gas tax. Their children are healthy, beautiful, and happy. They have no need for a giant loan on a Ford F150 and or a satellite dish. They don't have an expensive mobile plan and are not manipulated by facebook. I sense when you view how Amish communities operate to sustain themselves the solution is right in front of our own eyes. Our century experiment with industrialization appears to be a great failure. Humans need community, they need family, they need to make things with their own hands, and they need time away from screen that manipulate their emotions. This would be my suggestion as a potential path to follow. The race to the lowest cost product is a race to the bottom. It destroys our planet and leaves most without work. I would rather own 1 pair of locally sourced hand woven denim jeans than a walk in closet full of designer clothes. Why does anyone need a storage unit? One of the wealthiest ladies in America recycles cardboard in L.A. and sends it back to China and they send it back to America. Over and over. Think about that.
6
I don’t know the answer, but there’s an alternative hypothesis: democracies respond badly to economic crises. The Great Recession in 2007 was the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression in 1929. In both cases there was a period of about five years during which people were just trying to adjust. Then there was a rise in authoritarian agitation disguised as populism. The first one was ended by war, which among other things created nearly full employment in the US. Let’s hope the second ends that way too, but with just high employment and no world war.
Friedman wrote his book "The World is Flat" back in 2005. In it he extols the virtue of the Internet and how it will make society better by connecting people all over the world and allowing individuals in remote areas to prosper by allowing them full access to the data and markets available on the Internet. 13 years later we have come to a crossroads. The Internet did make the world flat but it also created a level of economic discord as it fostered the destruction of local markets. It also allowed larger manufacturers to move their production to cheaper labor markets but still market their goods to the very locations they had abandoned. This causes societal tensions resulting from displacement and economic loss. On top of all of this, the EU begins it's inevitable evolution from an ad hoc trading entity to one that has taking on the role of a regional supergovernment with unelected officials imposing regulations on the citizens of EU participants. It was a recipe for discord as people lost their regional voice to the elitarian bureaucrats in Brussels.
Brexit is the result of a disconnect created by the elites of the EU and the perceived snobbery evident in their regulations. When people begin to lose their culture and national identity, the result is the backlash we are seeing in Europe. The rise of Nationalism is only one facet in this issue. The decline of the EU and the ruling elite shall certainly follow.
5
@Mike This is a much better (detailed) version of my own comment, especially regarding Friedman's previous championing of the forces that have produced our current impasse.
So the idea here is that if staunch neo-liberal investment banker Emmanuel Macron fails, Europe and the world is done for?
What if it's Macron, and all he represents, which has failed -- that is, failed everyone but the Macrons and the op-ed page?
The olive tree has been chopped down for firewood and the Lexus is in the river thanks to a collapsed bridge, but this columnist's song never change.
6
@jrd Amen
It is the people in the UK who have realized that staying in the EU would be total economic suicide.
5
VIVE LA DIFFERENCE! The French have revolutionary expression in their DNA. Other countries do not. When the French do not like what's happening, the go to the streets to march and protest. When there is a national crisis or tragedy, they go to the streets to express their support. Macron may well be uncomfortable from people outside his mien. But he's a very smart guy. If he catches on quickly enough, which initial indications suggest that he's doing, he will be able to stem the tide and backpedal some of his flawed policies. Macron is going to have to increase taxation on the 1% and decrease it on the 99%. He must learn quickly the lessons that Trump is incapable of learning--still less of acknowledging their existence. That single change would make a great difference in the direction in which France is going. Of course despots like Marine Le Pen are just slavering, their filthy yaps dripping with slime, are thrilled. They would like nothing more than to bring an incarnation of organizations such as the KKK (in its third coming in the US thanks to Trump) to Europe--the EU. Behind all of this upheaval, of course, are the thumbs of the Russian hackers on the scales. There is evidence that they were complicit in intervening to falsely push through the Brexit. If that can be proven it would be huge. I do see a disoriented, confused, overwhelmed Europe. After all, they have taken in so many migrants literally fleeing for their lives. What have they gotten in return?
3
Europe died in August of 1914. What we have today is a badly decomposed corpse that has been rotting for a little over a century.
4
A combination of dissatisfaction, anxiety, fear, hate is now visible everywhere. Loss of economic and social status (privileges) coupled with fear and loathing of immigrants - is seducing people in the US, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Austria; it explains Brexit and Macron's current predicament.
Here, the dissatisfied segment is strongly connected to the religious right. The American religious Taliban - currently embryonic - is emerging, solidifying in the political, religious, and justice systems (and with DeVos' help, in education). Angry and dissatisfied folks are now angry and dissatisfied in America because they are angry and dissatisfied. Anger and strife is now the new normal, self-sustaining, the raison d'etre. The future is bright for gun runners financed by illicit businesses.
Florence (in the story) wants to guillotine someone. Whom? How would that help her, or her children and grandchildren she says she cares about? It does not matter to her, nor does it to voters in US, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Austria. They want "not this, not here, not now." Well, they've gotten it now.
People seem to have a bomb in one hand with the fuse lit, demanding to know what you are going to do about it. If anyone thinks this segment is ready to confront discomforting reality in which they are required to grow and change - good luck.
And then there’s climate change and emigration. There will be enormous presssure on Europe as Africa heats up.
3
Excellent article, Mr. Freidman. At the time of the vote for Brexit, I thought why is it being put before the people. The "tribes" came out and of course, voted against themselves.
Leaders recognize the impact of globalism and must work to keep economies afloat: We are ALL on this planet together, however tribes can't see past the end of their noses.
1
Big money created the E.U. If it failed, big money will find other ways to keep control of people who try to survive. Bn money doesn't care about UK's future.
1
Since when has San Francisco been considered a superstar city? Exactly how many jobs have been lost to robots? Tell me again how this whole socio-economic tremor has been brought on by "the rural, beyond-the-suburbs insurgencies of largely white working-poor and anxious middle classes." It just can't be that the whole progressive, left leaning social experiment in France isn't working and needs an overhaul, can it?
6
I am reminded yet again why Tom Friedman is the one consistently relevant and necessary columnist writing today (with apologies to the thoughtful David Brooks)-- in an increasingly interdependent planet his perspective , due in no small part to his extensive travel and interviews of movers and shakers worldwide, gives him a breadth of perspective that is startling when compared to the parochial, Trump-obsessed, agenda-driven and insight-free opining that passes for editorializing these days....he's hands-down the one consistently reassuring reason to read the Times these days.......
1
@Dennis Holland
Right on. Brooks and Friedman post essays that are thoughtful provocative and sometimes wrong. But at least they are literate and comprehensive. Unlike the Trump cadre that governs by minimalist 140 character strings of disconnected kindergarten notions.
2
Thank you for the sober analysis, Dr. Friedman. The ingredients are all there for a global economic implosion, followed by World War III as the surviving spheres of interest battle for control of whatever is left. The impact of automation/technology will not be denied, but the vacuum of real, thoughtful, creative leadership will determine who survives and prospers in a postwar world.
1
Mr Friedman summarizes the problem quit cogently, but blithely slides over a core issue. Is he really advocating oating “the end of history”, of human nature really, of human biology ? Tell me how the world functions without nations ? Consider his statement “ the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas, and the need to prevent people from feeling like strangers in their own homes“. Free flowing borders are by definition not borders ! A nation without borders is no longer soveriegn to its people and thus no longer a nation. It cant control its regulations (e.g., the UK) or its currency (e.g. Italy). Does Europe really need a free flowing border to allow facile entry by millions of uneducated unskilled immigrants from every third world undeveloped impoverished nation ? Seriously ? You appear as obtuse as Macron in your rhetoric. I abhor Trump in every way, but There are solutions-look to Australia and Canada- robust but CONTROLLED immigration emphasizing what AU/CAN need, not what immigrants desire (whose nation is it anyway ?) The EU, France have plenty of low skilled low educated citizens already, they just need a living wage. One other absurdity in this op-ed...how can you NOT be a stranger as an immigrant if you arent even fluent in that nations language ?
7
Europe has always been changing. Due to demographics white Europeans are becoming irrelevant. While the third world was often thought to be inferior to Europe we will see in the future that the third world will encompass Europe as well. And isn't it just that the descendants of the oppressed peoples of the world are now ascendant in the countries that oppressed their grandparents? The poor are inheriting the earth. The recent UN agreement on migration establishes migration as a human right. Why should someone have to live in Eritrea or Iraq when they could live in Paris or Munich or Hamburg or Nice and why should the native French be insulated from the consequences?
2
@as
What a profound sense of entitlement you have and also ascribe to the impoverished Third World in your willingness to resettle Africa and the Middle East in Europe. I’m not quite sure how because the Third World reproduces at catastrophic and irresponsible rates that somehow makes “white Europeans irrelevant due to demographics.”
@as The same way you don't share your living quarters with anyone and everyone, countries don't have to open up their borders to anyone who wants to enter.
Also, people have different ideas about what is correct or good. In some nations people hunt albinos for body parts. In other nations people murder their daughter because she "dishonored" the family by talking to a male non-relative. In other nations people think that one party dictatorship is the best way to build a stable society. And some people think that blasphemy should be punishable by death. All of these people cant live in the same nation and be happy together. This is why we have different countries.
Macron and the EU. Because globalization, austerity for the poor and attacks on labor rights have worked so well these past three decades.
2
I get the idea of encouraging local solutions to stagnation problems. But without a massive central effort, this approach is likely to lead to a patchwork quilt of prosperous enclaves surrounded by stagnation. It’s not clear to me at all how we work our way out of this situation.
1
Partially what I gather from Friedman's column is that Western Europe left to her own devices by way of Trump's having America step back from the EU on trade and protection is leading to Western Europe's disintegration. Another part is that technology and globalization is also leading to upheaval and disintegration.
My take is that the problem is not, Trump, or Macron, or Brexit, or Austria's Neo Nazi turn, or Russia, or China, or immigration, or even globalization. These are all symptoms. The problem is technology. Technology is moving so rapidly and so significantly that our economies and societies cannot deal with the rapid loss of jobs and indeed entire vocations, along with stagnant wage growth and extreme concentrations of wealth and power all the result of technology. Technology drives everything including globalization.
For example, where would globalization be today without the extreme advancement of telecommunications technologies in the past 20 years? Brexit is really a revolt against technology. It is all a revolt against technology and our inability to properly integrate this wonder in a fair and equitable manner to the masses, and instead have concentrated it to the very top in all countries.
1
@Sparky
Technology itself doiesn't take away wealth or make people feel poor. The issue is the benefits of technology going to the few and the rest feeling RELATIVELY POOR even though they have so much food to eat, so much things to have, good health and a home. You can cure absolute poverty but not relative poverty of the west. People need to get new perspective and appreciate what they indeed have.
2
This reads like an obituary of a famous person that ultimately failed his family and friends and died alone. It may be apt.
The issue facing everyone everywhere that needs a thoughtful review is immigration and assimilation. I think most people understand that immigration coupled with assimilation brings labor, entrepreneurship, vitality and good outcomes. But immigration without assimilation sows discord and everyone knows that too. Hence the intelligent answer is to allow sufficient time for assimilation which leads to a metered immigration flow with quotas, limits, rules etc so everyone feels safe, comfortable with the process and makes it law abiding. This will quell the bad feelings we all have towards one another. So don’t paint people that are upset about the changing world as unsuccessful nitwits stuck in the rural areas. Perhaps they see and feel what is happening more acutely than others. Come on NYT, you can do better.
4
You say that free-flowing borders are a solution but isn’t it clear they are quite unpopular? In the US, UK, and in the majority of other EU countries there is a strong resistance to open borders. What makes sense economically may not work culturally.
81
@Tyler McMahon - the "strong resistance" is based on xenophobia and nationalism. Unfortunately, those proclivities linger in our DNA, despite centuries of proof that they lead to war and mass destruction.
33
@Tyler McMahon It doesn't make sense culturally OR economically for ordinary people. That's not xenophobia, or racism. It's common sense. Open borders, the free flow of goods and people, works for corporations, not workers. It drives down worker wages, by an estimated $1 billion per year, increases the competition for jobs at home, and raises demand for social services that ordinary people use, like buses, schools, and hospitals. It's a disaster for ordinary people to have open borders. Their jobs move away and a bunch of strangers move in who mostly have a negative impact on quality of life for communities. What I read in this article and in the comments is a lot of parroting of the Democratic messaging. And that's why we need a third party...one that hasn't sold its soul to corporate America.
28
@Tyler McMahon Saying "in the majority of other EU countries there is a strong resistance to open borders" outs you as someone who knows nothing about Europe.
The Schengen Area represents 26 countries, mostly EU members, that have eliminated all border checks between them. Having lived her now for several years, I have yet to meet a single European who wants that scrapped.
8
1 - People migrate when they cannot make work (whether employment or safety for themselves and their children) what is available in their present home or feel they can do better elsewhere. The industrialized world and the leadership in those areas with large numbers of migrants have done very little to better the lives of the poor in those areas. So, Iraqis, Syrians, Guatemalans, etc, are on the march to escape the world around them.
2 - Imagine what would be going on in the Americas if instead of investing in China all those years ago, companies had done so in Mexico, a country more in line politically with us than China. Had done so in Central America.
3 - No leader in the US has had the guts to come out and say, "Life is changing from what is was right after WWII. We were right to help Europe get on its feet, but that also meant that we were creating competition for our US businesses. Of course the businesses in those other countries were going to try to top us, so we cannot be complacent, nor should we be surprised by this. Changing technologies also mean there will be displacement, and we have to have policies to deal with that. After all, where are all the wheelwrights and coopers now?"
So, we have displacement of workers in manufacturing, coal mining, etc, but we have no policy(ies) for helping these workers transition to something else. We offer them nothing to help them move to where work is.
Someone who would tell the truth about these would go a long way!
1
It sounds scarry, “if Macron fails, it can bring the end of Europe.” Dominique Moïsi may be too pessimistic about the future of Europe. The reality is that the EU functions quite smoothly despite the stuttering Franco-German motor, that is supposed to rev up the engine of European integration.
There may be no fundamental reforms in the near future, as both Macron and Merkel are turning inward. But the EU engine wouldn’t break down due to the ongoing crises, because public support for the bloc has surged since the 2016 Brexit vote. Next year’s European Parliament election will show the Continent’s direction. It’s unlikely that far-right populists and nationalists will take the helm. And the coming generation of Europeans might succeed, where current leaders have failed.
2
There is a simple solution to all of this. Do not allow corporations to deduct the cost of real estate (rent, purchase or equivalent) from their taxes. This is a huge tax subsidy that distorts the market. Doing away with this deduction will encourage corporations to move to rural areas to lower their tax burden and simultaneously make housing affordable in urban areas.
3
I think we may be misdiagnosing the problem when we blame leadership, technological advancements, or nationalism as the reasons, individually or collectively, as the reason for the turmoil roiling the E.U. change is the genesis of the problem. More precisely, rapid change that we are too slow or unwilling to respond to. If you look at the transition from hunter gatherers to agrarian to industrial and now to knowledge based, it has been marked by disruption and more losers than winners. The key factor in each transition is the time for society to adjust. We can prepare for the world today and that world is gone tomorrow. Nobody and no government can respond quick enough to solve these problems. If our worth continues to be correlated with what we do for a living, and the opportunities to make a living continue to decline, we will see more disruptive activities and more us versus them politics.
2
I grew up in Europe back in the days when cars in France had yellow headlights and Spain was a developing country.
If I received a eurocent every time the EU or the eurozone was declared dead, I'd be a euro billionaire by now.
Conflict is baked into the EU, which is essentially nothing but a coalition of countries competing for economic interests. However, none of the remaining EU27 populations hate each other or wish to leave the union. That includes Hungary and Poland and it is key to understanding the EU and why its politicians and diplomats (among the best in the world) always find a way out and forward.
Yes, Europe will change. Certainly, further integration is not going to happen anytime soon, Italy and other countries with high government debt may leave the eurozone, solidarity between the North and South/East might be dialed back, Schengen may be reviewed etc.
These changes will not be dictated by the French-German axis, however. That's an outdated view, and one the smaller and rich Northern countries are actively contesting with the Hanseatic alliance that is taking shape.
It is the US I'm most worried about. This country is headed towards a period of high instability, with all branches of government overreaching and fighting each other.
If the Republicans find a smarter and skilled version of Trump, this country is toast.
5
Some people think restrictions on immigration and globalization fostered by the EU mark the end of Europe.
Others think it was those changes themselves that marked the end of their countries and decent lives.
People who like globalization are the natural enemies of those whose lives have been destroyed by it.
When power structures essentially demand support of globalization from their leaders, you can't be surprised when the people who've been ruined rise up.
5
@Talbot - I keep waiting for the research piece that explains how peoples' "lives have been ruined" by globalization. That claim seems to be more right wing rhetoric than truth.
@dean bush How much do you travel in the midwest? Have you visited towns where the factories are gone?
I was born there, visit frequently, and have seen the changes first hand.
Please don't sit in NYC bubble land--I live here--and claim it's all a right wing fantasy.
7
@Talbot - NYC is no more or less a "bubble" than Fort Wayne Indiana. I travel outside NYC often, across the country. I see Rust Belt towns reinventing themselves (e.g. Pittsburgh) by transitioning from heavy manufacturing to services, science and health care, and I see small town middle-of-nowhere towns capitalizing on the global economy (new car plants in S.Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia). May I suggest you look beyond your own bubble, sir, for signs of hope and - horrors! - prosperity during these times?
The displacement and discomfort of the working classes in Europe and the US parallels the 19th century transition from rural economies to factories. ('Sabotage' may be back in its 21st century form: hacking.) The last time hundreds of thousands of migrants streamed out of their countries, the US was more amenable to taking them in than it is under Trump's administration. Someday there will be a socio'l study that examines the limits of human tolerance for the 'other'--strangers with difference complexions, aliens, people swathed in unfamiliar garments and headgear. But until then, we will be living through the real thing, watching humanity heave and totter, rally and stumble again as it moves forward in time and history.
1
If a united Europe is so fragile that tax protests in France can destroy it, perhaps it is too fragile a construct to deserve to survive. Any construct which attempts to mash together the cultures of disparate elements like Norway, France, Greece and Hungary is going to have difficulties at best. Perhaps it is time to let it go, and let the countries make their own separate ways forward.
3
@mikecody The impact of the gilets jaunes must not be overestimated, political activism has always been strong in unionized France.
The role of the French President in the EU is also not as pivotal as Thom Friedman portrays, the days when Mitterand and Kohl decided for everyone else are long gone. Watch the irritation of the smaller country leaders when Macron, who hasn't quite figured this out, speaks before his turn.
The countries you mention have in common that none of them wish to leave the EU (or EEA in the case of Norway).
Europeans love to freely travel, study and work all over the continent. Nobody (except the old British people) wants to turn back the clock to sovereign countries. Europe's battles over migration, austerity etc. are not linked to a desire to exit the union.
1
@mikecody - No doubt, people in California or Massachusetts, for example, find the cultures of Alabama, North Dakota, and West Virginia to be as disparate as those you mentioned in Europe.
@dean bush
Exactly and the US is a nation in stark decline politically, culturally, economically. Not quite sure what your point is seeing as the United States is doomed to regional hatreds at best and breaking up into several nations at worst.
Mr Friedman may be correct but the issue is far more complex than presented. I lived in Germany for almost a decade (before and during reunification). The German were an interesting combination of social liberalism and financial conservatism. Meanwhile, France, Italy and some other EU members believed that they could spend endlessly while increasing social programs, ignoring taxes and reducing their productivity. The Germans looked at their neighbours, shrugged and kept building wealth.
Go back to what your grandmother taught you: if you would like to have something, you need to EARN it.
6
The "yellow vests" in France are just like the supposed angry white men in the United States.
They are a construct of the hate-anger-fear-Lies,Lies,Lies-death-destruction-WAR International Mafia.
Fortunately the Good People of Europe who have seen their countries destroyed many times before with this play book are staying calm and will vote in droves to prevent their destruction.
Please, media people, stop trying to make these seem like grassroots movements. They are Steve Bannon, nra, Koch brothers, Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and their Robber Baron brethren attempts to destroy the world with their insatiable greed.
Help WE THE PEOPLE - average people around the world - stop them.
3
I find it ironic that the more visible signs of European unrest are coming from France. To the average American the French worker has enviable benefits unknown in America - such as cradle to grave health care, life long job security once hired, government pensions the envy of Germany, and the most powerful unions in Europe. Never mind the huge agricultural subsides that rural regions enjoy. Macron might be misunderstood by the 'masses', and branded as an elitist, but he is right on in trying to pare down the bloated state of French finances and in trying to make France more competitive. What we might be seeing in France (at least), is not another manifestation of a the 'populist' wave, but just another example of once you give something to someone, you cannot take it away. Much like Medicare here.
6
How does imposing a new tax on pensions over 2,000 euros make France more “competitive”? Neoliberal rubbish.
@Jeff
Neoliberalism doesn't have much to do with France not having enough revenue to maintain the high social services they provide. The money has to come from somewhere - and one can certainly debate as to who should pay more, or what Macron could have done differently. Either the money is found, or it continues to be borrowed in increasing amounts as it is now. The more government borrows, the less available capital is to the private sector - hence the connection to being more "competitive".
Much of the substance of Mr. Friedman's ongoing narratives about economic change and dislocation are based on a lie; that the people at 'the top', as a group, are gifted, highly educated, true leaders, that their position in society is inevitable. In fact, these people, on the whole, got where they are because their families had money to get them into elite universities, and because they possessed enough brainpower to get through coursework that is about as difficult as what good high schools offered a couple generations ago.
Few of these people hold advanced degrees in anything unrelated to business. They are not scientists, artists, engineers or educators. I have watched people like this scramble up the ladder to success - they love the mobility of the modern age because it allows them to 'break things' in one institution and move on to some bigger and better opportunity before there is any risk of having to deal the consequences of what they have done. Sometimes, like Macron, they get too high, and there is no new place to escape to.
I bet the Gilet Jaunes, as a group, are smarter and more talented than anybody in Macron's crowd. For example, the retired carpenter quoted. He cannot afford to buy a new truck on his fixed income, but I am sure he can actually build things, more useful and sturdy than anything Macron or his cohorts could make.
Perhaps a guillotine!
9
@zauhar
What high school did you go to?
1
Freedom in Europe? When? Europeans are hedged around by bureaucracy, regulations, speech laws, and idiotic customs. Privacy? Yeah right. All that's keeping the lid on are assurances that the goodies will keep flowing. As soon as the goodies look endangered, it's back to the barricades.
4
"public housing in Paris today is dominated by immigrants" > This is just plain wrong. 80% of public housing in France is occupied by French-born families. I don't understand why a newspaper like the NYT would publish such an obvious mistake (or plain lie, that mimics Marine Lepen's rhetoric), be it in an op-ed.
2
@Thom Richet: Thom, with all due respect that 80% includes majority second generation residents from former French Colonies, not folks of French decent who have been paying into and dying for the system since the revolution, a stroll outside “the ring” where much of the subsidized housing lies will support this point. That is but one of the issues, the other being a Macrons attempts to undermine labor and allow globalization to destroy Frances middle class just as it did America’s.
5
Friedman for president. I’m not joking.
1
Angela Merkel of Germany really was the one who blew it. Bypassing Brussels and allowing some one million Middle Easterns and Africans to enter the EU, then deciding how to distribute these immigrants was an atrocious unilateralism. Perhaps it was with good intentions but again showed the world that "Deutschland, Deutschland Uberall" called the shots. Beyond stupid. Dictatorial once again - Merkel set the scene for the UK to assure their independence from the EU then followed by many others.
9
@rudolf
It is not immigration thats an issue in countries with declining population. But it is an issue if the wealthy keep getting the benefits of globalization while others are left with trickle down if anything actually trickles down.
Afraid Friedman doesn't really have any answers, for he is good at finally diagnosing the problem but his prescription is pure fluff. The EU has a massive democratic deficit and it is this problem that has led many UK voters to want out (a decision I disagree with but understand). Globalism has met its match: citizens who instinctively understand that transnational structures are essentially designed to ignore the little people.
9
Back in the early seventies there was a book called Future Shock. It promised a new world of endless choice while warning that the new order of unlimited possibilities would be a shock to all because of its ubiquitous nature. We would be able to have products in any color we wanted, any shape, any size, we'd be choosing cigarettes, even toilet paper in our favorite color. Robots to do all our chores would allow us leisure time to devote to shopping our hearts out. The book, itself came in several different colored jackets. Choose ! The authors--a husband and wife team--who collected all the information for the book from industrialists and CEOs became gurus of the future. I have always thought of Thomas Friedman as their protege, promising a new beneficent world order through GLOBALIZATION. On one level the message was the same: get on board or get left out. I'd like to say to him: You got us into this mess, now get us out. At least he seems to now acknowledge the mess we're in, if not fully his hand in it.
3
@August Becker - Wouldn't you say that "globalization" is inevitable since it has been going on for many, many centuries? I often wonder how and when globalization was turned into a foul 4-letter word. It seems like a natural, ongoing aspect of life on this planet. No surprise that it has been politicized by the right, but still... where's the truth in the matter? Globalization is not toxic.
1
@dean bush
Where’s the truth? Donald Trump, Reagan, Milton Friedman, etc.
The end of E̶u̶r̶o̶p̶e̶, the EU you mean? Happy days, small miracles.
4
Yugoslavia divided into 13 nations. Imagine what will happen to Europe when it collapses. The same goes for the USA.
Well done Putin.
3
"after watching Britain become paralyzed over how to commit economic suicide by leaving the E.U"....funniest thing a read all day. Thanks Tom, really funny, and the sun won't rise tomorrow.
2
An interesting article I would not disagree with many of the points made but maybe with the emotional priority. Immigration is 99% of what is going on. It is the elephant in the room never truly discussed, a massively complex social issue with reduced to moral posturing. Europe is 500million people. On its shores in the Arab world are 700million people, sub Sahara Africa will be measured in billions. The visible influx of immigrants combined with social change has created a sense of paranoia resulting in the kick back across Europe. It is the economy, stupid. No it isn't. Hence the vote for economic suicide.
2
"...the liberal global order that has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history has been held up by two pillars..."
I don't know what to say - except that this is absolutely not true by any reasonable empirical standards.
You know what two things have raised up more folks around the world from poverty?
1. Local unfettered free markets
2. Global free trade
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty
But then again - these simple two idea have nothing to do with the liberal manipulation of free markets, the imposition of arbitrary ethical Western standards and the choosing of winners and losers.
1
@SteveRR - "liberal global order" being quite the opposite of "nationalist isolationist policies", I'd say the author is right on the money (no pun intended). Someone seems to be having another bad day...
This is as depressing as reading the obituary. Maybe that is what I was reading.
I must confess, whenever I see the Friedman byline, I add a cellar of salt. You make a few good points, Tom, but I'll never let you off the hook for your foolish and whole-hearted support for the Iraq war. It's an object lesson in taint. And in my book, that folly of misjudgment and miscalculation means you'll never be free of it.
5
“a considerable cohort of people with stagnant incomes and burning resentments at the globalized city slickers who they think look down at them and have mastered the nonroutine skills required for a high-wage job today.”
Why would they think that Mr. Friedman?
By “non-routine skills required for a high wage job today”, do you mean cavorting with Saudi oligarchs and peddling bombastic intellectual junk? What, exactly, does that phrase mean?
I’m not much moved by the temporary shutdown of your favorite shops in Paris— “shocking” to you as it may be. In fact, consider me “burning with resentment” at the ridiculous condescension and false pretense of expertise demonstrated throughout this entire piece— “city-slicker”!
Here’s a thought: consider putting some more thought and research into your opinions before peddling them to the public with the tone of a messianic savior of humanity? Or, just omit the
grandiose tone entirely? That alone would be a tremendous improvement as far as I’m concerned.
2
The tragedy for the French is that had they kept Algeria as a part of France it would be another California. There was oil, agriculture, weather. Apparently the Muslims in Algeria cannot build a society that would attract the African poor probably because the people in power are stealing all the money and putting it into Parisian real estate. What an irony. Now the French have to support the huge Muslim and African population but they do not have the wealth to do it. The much vaunted western standard of living is going to change. Rather than forcing more migration to Europe might it not make sense to demand that the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Gulf Arab States take their fair share of the world's needy? Why are the Sheiks of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the wealthy Mullahs in Iran or the billionaires in India freed from financial responsibility for the hungry masses while the French bourgeousie is forced to ante up? Don't tell me the Muslims are poor.....they are sitting on an ocean of oil.
5
@as - It may help put things into perspective to learn that roughly 10% of the population of France are immigrants. That is not a "huge population", nor is it one that the French "have to support" since only 17% of immigrants are unemployed (have not yet found work). These facts take less time to find on the internet than it takes to write a post that is not based in fact.
3
So Friedman, how’s your invasion of Iraq going? You enthusiastically bought into that ridiculous error, the worst in US history, perhaps as a way of maintaining world leadership? After Isis, mass immigration to Europe and untold deaths and expense of our nation’s wealth, both monetary and philosophical? Well?
5
“Macron set up a totally imperial presidency, built around a tiny team — “they were like a commando unit,” Le Monde writer Alain Frachon remarked to me.”
Macron’s biggest claim to fame before he rocketed to the presidency was that he was a McKinsey consultant. When a company gets “McKinsey-ed” a tiny imperial team invades the company and acting like a commando unit it ruthlessly tears the place apart with no regard for the havoc they wreak with the employees’ lives. What is impressive is the degree to which the French grassroots have come out into the streets to protest getting McKinsey-ed.
What I’d like to know is where are the yellow vest movements of the US and UK?
1
Un-Tax the Rich, gouge the Poor. A perfect recipe for Revolution.
Sharpen the Guillotines.
Macron was not the answer Jean Luc Melenchon was the answer and why the gilets jaunes don't recognize that is beyond me but, please note Macron was elected without a majority and only because France did not want Le Pen!!! Many voters did not vote or voted "white card" which is an opposition to both candidates.
The old school economics will not work in the future this is obvious on many levels...just watch Greta Thunberg ... a 15 gets what the adults in the room refuse to see.
1
This is a frightening commentary, written by a man, Thomas L. Friedman, who has been consistently wrong about everything. He even wrote a book he proudly titled "The World is Flat".
Like Macron, Friedman is a fervent neo-liberal ideologue. If these guys had not expanded NATO and the EU into the former Soviet satellite states, shipped all the jobs there, and allowed free immigration from those countries, there would never have been a Brexit, nor today's ethnic nationalism mess in Western Europe. The neo-lib answer to the bankster crisis of 2008 was "austerity", condemning every southern eurozone country from Portugal to Greece to a decade of misery. Then destabilizing the entire ME by invading Baathist Iraq led to the refugee crisis, ISIS, and Muslim radicalization in the prisons of Europe. Friedman is one of the wise guys who created this mess, and he is the least likely to know how to get out of it.
3
In reading other comments, including my own previous one, many point out that Mr Friedman makes an overall good assessment of the problem but offers no solutions. The core problem is that leaders like Macron/Trump are out of touch with most ordinary citizens and think of leadership in terms of top down /trickle down policies. The problem with that approach is that often the results don't work, have warse consequences or too slow. If Mr Friedman is a "centrist" himself it is difficult to offer real solutions. Easier to blame the imperial/fat cat Macron/Trump or the ignorant people than something more fundamental. To quote Tip O'Neil, "All politics is local". In a media age even more so. People, towns, cities must be engaged in whole process from conception to implementation to achieve real and credible results. As pointed out, cities are more nimble than countries and that's because they engage local people and are dealing with manageable situations. Central governments can be hot houses of ideas, facilitators of revenue management and resources but should be restricted generally and subservient to community interests. In short, encourage local democracy to flourish! Something that is an anathema to centrists and dare I use the term, elites.
52
@Niall Firinne, Granted that your recommendation--"encourage local democracy to flourish!"-- may reduce the motivation to protest, how is it a solution to the problem of global shifts in work roles?
5
@Mary C. Then again, it's the motivation to protest that is encouraging local democracy to flourish, as it did in the years leading up to the French Revolution and in every French revolution thereafter, including '68.
The word is “Assemblée Générale.” Look it up.
2
@Niall Firinne
At least Mr Friedman's diagnosis is correct. So we are halfway towards the cure!
2
Turning inward will not work. Tariffs and sharp restrictions in immigration will add costs to goods that people cannot afford to buy and deprive countries of immigrants that can help them grow. 70 years of peace in Europe has been worth it. Need better leaders.
1
I think Tom Friedman describes the dangers threatening European unity very well, but these dangers extend well beyond what happens in France. I don't believe France alone constitutes the tipping point of EU survival. As he himself points out, there are numerous destabilizing factors at play. I believe each of them needs to be addressed in order to preserve the EU.
1
The end of the EU is called evolution. Adapt, or go extinct.
4
I'm horrified at what's happening in the world -- including but not limited to the problems that Friedman discusses. But his language is going way beyond the seriousness of the problems.
The US is lucky that the leader we turned to is a shameless liar, crook, and at bottom incompetent. He will be turned out of office in 2018 and the sane among us (including some of his present supporters) will realize that we over-reacted and had better get back to somewhere in what used to be the middle.
Europe. What does "the end of Europe" mean anyway? Not the end of France, of Germany, of the UK... It means the (perhaps not forever) end of the idea of a politically and economically united set of nation-states. They went too far too fast (the euro), at the same time too slow (common monetary policy don't work without common fiscal policy), and then the migration from the Middle East kicked the whole thing over the edge. It's a big setback but far, very far, from the end of the world. Hungary has been basically fascist for a long time; the world can live with that if we have to. Putin is clever and aggressive but Russia is still nothing much beyond "a gas station with nukes" and shows no sign of being anything more in the foreseeable future. The Middle East will be unstable for at least several more generation; what else is new?
In short we -- human society -- will stumble along, far from perfect. But words like "suicide" and "the end of Europe" are a bit over the top.
Russia is a gas station with nukes, yes. It is also a corrupt organization run by kgb thugs and cruel oligarchs with a penchant for destruction of democracy through cyber warfare. How Tom can't see the connection between the dire situations in our three great countries is beyond me. The key difference is May and Macron are well intended and loyal to their citizens; in trump we have a complicit actor or perhaps worse. Smart people in our 3 nations must figure out how to fight this war. For funding, how about clawbacks from Facebook et al?
Neoliberalism, Elitism and Crony Capitalism have eroded the political and social contracts which supported western democracies for decades. The election of Mr. Trump, Mr. Macon, the "bipolar" Italian government, far-right nativist political parties and Brexit were the symptoms of an aggressive political cancer eating away the body politic.
And as is the case when aggressive disease states remain "untreated" irreversible damage results. The "cure" for western democracies at their advanced debilitated conditions will have serious side effects but are the only palliatives capable of saving them.
1
Tom still thinks the solution is in the “cities”, and this is a repeated mistake the elites make. He is right that decentralized societies will fare better than centralized ones. That is happening as a political movement, and it is happening with technology (blockchain). What Tom and the elites do not get is that THEY are part of the centrallized elite, that they want to control thought, and opinion and views, and society is tired of that. By the way, it is an old saw that the US is “retreating” from the world. It is not, US policy is just not in synch with what elites what it to be, which is to be more centrallized.
1
You write “These rapid accelerations in technology and globalization have brought many more immigrants into many more remote corners of their societies …” And, you are right in identifying such uncontrolled immigration as the root cause that is keeping France ablaze.
Controlled immigration, on the other hand, allows the immigrants to assimilate into society gradually as is evidenced in the past immigration cycles within the US.
Citizens of nanny states like France are discovering that now there are millions more mouths to be fed due to illegal and uncontrolled immigration. France can float its economy only by severely increasing taxes and lowering the standard of living. Macron’s withdrawal of fuel tax is going to fuel uncontrolled inflation sinking France to the ilk of banana republics of the Americas.
When the problems hit the pocket books of the citizenry, mob cries “Vive la Nation! Vive la République!" reminiscent of 1793 are bound to erupt.
Perhaps, politicians will begin to heed the legitimate concerns of the original citizens in their geographical entities with distinct cultures, languages, history and traditions. To take away all of that accumulated legacy of thousands of years by allowing an uncontrolled Middle-Eastern invasion is finally coming home to roost in Europe.
The US public should learn a lesson from what is happening in France, UK and other European nations. Don’t we see that Mr. Trump has a point in curbing caravans from crossing the border?
5
In barely veiled form Friedman's reaction is the same reaction French liberals have had to every revolution since 1789: It's never because "the People" have needs that aren't being met (whether bread or public transportation); it's that they're just not "nimble" enough, to use Friedman's own words; it's that they have "burning resentments" of those who are supposedly better off. The solution, of course, is more "nimbleness."
Got any more fuel for the fire, Mr. F? Any more cakes the People should eat?
3
Worker owned co-ops of private enterprises, like in the Mondragon region of Spain, are the way forward. They foster respect for the social fabric, the environment and the necessity for a survivable future. Oligarchic, shareholder, wage slave, planet despoiling capitalism must be replaced by a capitalism that does not kill its host, but sustains it and helps it flourish.
2
@Tomas O'Connor It's a reasonable step forward, as it was in 19th Century Britain. It does not do well with immigrants who don't speak the language or share the social values of the worker-owners.
Too much change too fast is the problem, both economically and socially.
1
Instead of let them eat cake, it should had been let them eat croissant.
The NYTs take on the UK and the rest of Europe is increasingly out of touch.
As a brit on twitter pointed out these are the kind of far right talking points that become mainstream with the help of publications like NYT.
One hopes NYT will keep the focus on the link between Trump and Brexit via Mercer Bannon Banks Farage and Putin, and their desire for a destabilised Europe.
A lot of those Gilets Jaunes are not all they would seem...
1
If you have to write in terms of "holding Europe together," then it's already gone, sinking, about to go under!Folks want their autonomy back, r no longer willing to be held hostage by Junker and Merkel who believe they know what is best for the rest of us, meanwhile isolating themselves from disastrous, sometimes tragic results of allowing hundreds of thousands of unvetted immigrants into countries and who r entitled to a full card of welfare benefits at the taxpayer's expense. Given the rising number of attentats, terrorist acts in the EU countries, 1 would think logical thing to do would be to abolish open borders. Yet even after multiple attacks in Paris and Brussels in past several years by zealots, open borders, ability to go from 1 country to another w/o a visa is unhindered!
1
The Yellow Vests and the "We love Coalers" are not the majority - City dwellers are at this stage. But we're in a mobile age where resentment can travel and a time of disproportional representation to troubled geographies.
'Tis growing pains, a blip, though T.F. doesn't call that and has a "chicken little" tone.
Cities-up-up-up is not "let them eat cake". It is inexorable production that decides. You can rage against that machine but that machine keeps on coming.
Move. Join in.
@Conor I'm sure you have proposals whereby people who can't afford to live in LA, the Bay area, Seattle, NYC etc. will be able to do so. You won't mind suburbs being bulldozed for workers' housing, and cars being forbidden as antisocial- right. You'll love strangers being billeted into your spare rooms, right?
How else could they "Move. Join in."?
This conflation of 'Europe' with a non-democratic, unrepresentative political structure 'EU" constitutes the constant lazy and thoughtless musings from those who don't actually live there but feel the need to throw out their thoughts through the power of the media.
Mr. Friedman, you often, but not always, get it right. This is a case of not always.
Macron did not set out to do the right things.
Macron set out to do the Reagan/Thatcher/Blair thing : shoveling money from the poor to the rich, destroying all the protections which preserved the middle class from falling into the working class and the working class from falling into homelessness.
The working class is now rebelling in many places.
It is mostly rebelling in a very stupid way, as Trump and his ilk know all too well.
The Yellow Vests, so far, are doing it right.
You should learn from them.
3
I was unchacteristically impressed with Tom on CNBC yesterday.
IMHO, the key question is whether Brexit is simply a suicidal level of stupidity, or more dangerously a seminally sinister scam connected to the destruction of America under Emperor Trump.
Both of these arrogant attempts to Make Empire Great Again (MEGA) through this Anglophile attempt to split from the progressive social democracies of the largest political/economic,
social, and cultural union ever created — which might well develope into some succeeding U.N.-type Global Democracy Union (GDU), which could accept and accommodate all of the actual democracies in our world, including Europe, America, Asia, and others as they actually become cooperating, rather than competing and ‘trade-warring’ wannabe Empires — would all be sacrificed as a promising proposition under rulers like Emperor Trump.
So, are the breath-takingly stupid Brexit and Emperor Trump propagandized (s)elections just coincidentally convulsive, or is some hidden meta-causal cancerous tumor of expanding Empire purposely pre-planned by the same metastasizing disguised globsl capitalist Empire, which both our American founders and the radical Whig party which Justin du Rivage so clearly disagnosed in his deeply researched and definitive history of the American “Revolution Against Empire”?
1
A typical example of whiteness at work...
First whiteness appears...
“being shaken today by rural and beyond-the-suburbs insurgencies of largely white working-poor and anxious middle classes...”
Then, whiteness disappears...
“and as average work no longer returns an average wage that can sustain an average middle-class lifestyle.”
Here, elite whites are off the hook. Being poor and anxious is curiously pegged to being white (as if, what, the cause is their whiteness?). And the post-war white guarantee of an average middle-class lifestyle is hidden.
Weak racial analyses are a big part of the problem.
2
Dear Mr. Friedman,
there are no "United Nations of Europe", not even under the name of the EU.
And as for the rest of your opinion piece, I believe that you have no idea what is going in Europe.
Yes, there are lot of problems with migrants, but no, the economy and the social contract are very strong and in no way comparable to the US.
If I want an opinion about Europe by someone who does not understand Europe, I'll switch to Fox&Friends.
Your opinion piece only shows an utter failure to understand what is going on in France and the European Union.
France has a tradition of street protests and these will come and go as they have done in the past.
Macron was riding on a wave of "not being Le Pen" and that is it.
He will fail and the next government will try to solve the problems Macron failed to solve.
But that will not bring down the European Union, which BTW, is Europe as Europe also includes a number of countries you don't seem to get like Russia.
So please do not write about social unrest in France bringing down an entire continent or even the EU.
You are not just dead wrong, you are very much uninformed.
2
The photos and dramatic rhetoric of this piece are misleading.
The Yellow Vests only demonstrated in a couple of streets in Paris. Normal life continued for the vast majority of the city.
The window breaking, theft and car-torching is done by breakers, who accompany large demonstrations for fun and profit. The Yellow Vests helped police clean up after them.
Macron made the mistake of giving a tax break to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. He has crushed unions, so that workers are directly up against bosses who do not want to raise pay.
France's income inequality is not as vast as that of the U.S....we're all financially challenged. To save money, France has regionally centralized hospitals, utilities, governments, made people relocate in the process or fire them.
But, cutting tax revenue in stressful economic times is a bad idea. Countries need the revenue to support the needs of residents and incentivize business. The already-wealthy do not need aid.
The gas tax was a good and bad idea. It was to reduce use of vehicles, and to supplement lost tax revenue. But, without trains, countryside residents have only their cars. And, they're paying for Macron's ill-advised tax cut.
The majority of EU residents are pro-EU, and even the U.K. wants back in. The Extreme Left and Right both want to break up the EU, as does Russia. Their goal is power. The Right uses fear, the Left, philosophy. Neither offers solutions. Russia seeks to conquer.
207
@Lilou
United we stand (finally)...against Russia
13
@Lilou Some very good points. Would like to point out that some reliable economists have measure the cost of the protests to the economy as very significant. At 18 to 20% rating in the polls in favour of Macron, it would seem the Yellow Jackets maybe the vocal tip of a large anti governement iceberg. As to the UK wanting back in, first we haven't left yet, second most surveys suggest that if the same referendum were held today as two years ago the result would likely be the same. Finally, if the majority of EU residents are pro EU, it is a rapidly shrinking one. Of course a referendum would sort that question out s bit, but most if not all political establishments would resist any such plebiscite. It goes without saying that if a vote happened and if the people voted the wrong way they would just have to vote again and again and again till the got it right. France itself voted against the EU in a referendum and the French political establishment ignored it. As I recall it was on the "constitution" which was quickly relabeled a "treaty" so no foul. In the UK Tony Blair promised a vote on the same thing and reneged when he thought the answer would be no. That did nothing but feed the anti EU sentiment. M Macron now wants a European Army! Are the French, Italians, Poles, the Dutch, the Swedes going to get a vote? Seems Macron should focus more on domestic French matters that trying to pump himself up on a Brussels stage!
8
@Niall Firinne--good comments and I want to reply, But, must take a meeting, so read in about 4 hours, if so inclined. We don't have same POV, but can discuss.
The EU was only about the movement of cheap labor
From France here: There is a very polite Gilet Jaune “action” (it isn’t a group because there arecno leaders, just a Facebook page) near here on weekends. They congregate at certain traffic circles and hand out small broadsheets. GJs here and across France go to their jobs during the week and protest on Saturdays. The entrenched conservative behavior of the French— even while they rebel. I agree with all their demands. Macron should have known what time it was. But he didn’t.
The scuttle-but around here is that the “actions” are heavily infiltrated by a motley crew of interests, and now the far-right, who Macron won against, sees its opportunity. Russian disinformation is in there too. As are the usual-suspect ruffians who show up to break things. None of that in this region, except for speed cameras being vandalized.
But what I see also is an allowance to do such things given by the present insane leadership in the U.S. Europe follows the culture of the U.S. too closely. Essentially Putin won the 2016 election — globally. I can’t help but feel that when sanity returns to U.S. politics, all will calm down here.
Here’s hoping, 2019!
4
If France can take to the streets to demand equality, why can't we! Are we to just sit and wait for our corrupt leaders to totally destroy the fabric of our society that has held us together, albeit it tenuously. The uprising of the working class is the only way that society has ever changed, so what exactly are we waiting for!
5
"But it was all a lie".
Some of it was a lie. But much of it was passionate ignorance. Is ignorance as shameful as lying? That depends on the opinionator. But absolutes like the word "all" in that pithy simplicity can, and does, spread hate and anger rather than encourage the problem-solving between leaders and their constituents to which Mr. Friedman's article ought, perhaps?, to be drawing our attention.
1
and the robots are coming...what then for jobs? what color will the rebelling out-of-work protesters wear?
"dared to do the right things to unlock growth in France"
Cutting taxes for the rich and raising them on the rest of the public.... Making it easier to fire people... Attacking pensions...
Sounds like a recipe for destroying growth to me.
2
These are historical times. The geopolitics of the world and shift of power is happening right before our eyes. The end of white civilization is coming and people are afraid to acknowledge it. If history is anything to learn from, we would think about better ways to gracefully decline. I was scratching my head and when I read about Bolton's idea of investing in Africa, that's when I realized America and the West are desperate. They are losing the international world order but we are busy passing laws in congress to protect Israel. They should enjoy it while it last and I am sure the Palestinians have not forgotten the humiliation they have suffered. The chickens are definitely coming home to roost.
1
“ France is pivotal in holding the E.U. together”. Well you can kiss that goodbye Mr. World is Flat, Let’s invade Iraq Friedman, at this point you’ll be lucky if the world doesn’t coming crashing down entirely around your neo liberal head. Globalization, immigration from M.E. Wars and the financialization of everything allowing the 1% to retain all the profit has already decimated America’s middle class and you are now ringing your hands that the French are fighting back, hopefully they are but the beginning of a world wide movement to correct the effects of vulture capitalism begun in the early seventies with Milton Friedman and his acolytes from the Chicago School and made possible by going off the gold standard, without which a debt fueled era of boom and bust would have never happened, an era that threw labor under a bus in favor of shareholders and upper management, an era that saw the tax base erode, infrastructure corrode and the Middle class implode, as inheritance laws were passed that insured new dynasties during this takeover of fiscal democracy by a handful of international businessmen and financiers. Thomas Piketty correctly summed it up by stating the obvious, the new world order is run by the rich for the rich, the divisive issues on abortion, gender and race are just window dressing for politicians to hide behind as neo liberals make off with the money leaving a trail of broken nations and lives. Neo liberalism was a smokescreen for grand theft.
5
“When you simultaneously challenge all these things that anchor people — their sense of home, their job security, their prospects for growth and the social norms that, for better or worse, defined their lives — and then amp it all up with social networks, you can get a really ferocious blowback, as France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, saw across his country.”
The phrase “for better or worse” in the above sentence is a weasel word if I ever heard one. Read the sentence without the phrase and see how different it sounds. Perhaps then you will get a sense for the anger rural people have for urban elites.
1
"Here is what’s really scary, though. I don’t think there are national solutions to this problem — simply cut taxes or raise taxes — in the way there were in the past. I think the countries that will thrive in this era are the ones that have the most nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs, who can compete locally, regionally, nationally and globally."
Gee Tom, sounds like you are favoring the plot of the original Rollerball movie! Face it . . . the Best and the Brightest can now give us the global equivalent of Vietnam . . . maybe your industry will finally find their new Walter Cronkite to tell all of us the globalists really weren't wearing any clothes!
You can keep talking till the cows come home, but no wiser.
You got to realize that issues are fundamentally rooted in geographical girth as theorized by Leopold Kohr in his seminal book Break down of Nations.
Solution to the problem facing the world today may be found in peaceful devolution of nation states to small manageable units. Poorly done Globalization today has created unmanageable situation precisely because as said by IMF if “done wisely, it could lead to unparalleled peace and prosperity; done poorly, to disaster.
“Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. If the stars in the sky or the atoms of uranium disintegrate in spontaneous explosion, it is not because their substance has lost its balance. It is because matter has attempted to expand beyond the impassable barriers set to every accumulation. Their mass has become too big. If the human body becomes diseased, it is, as in cancer, because a cell, or a group of cells, has begun to outgrow its allotted narrow limits. And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into over concentrated social units such as mobs, unions, cartels, or great powers.”
― Kohr Leopold
Mr. Friedman’s article is simply laughable in how adroitly he tries to ignore the central yet disquieting issue for France - 14% of their population is now Islamic immigrants and migrants who simply do not want to be part of a traditional France! They live in no-go police areas around Paris, they do not assimilate and they demand to be governed not by French law but instead by their own medieval Sharia law. France may well have already passed the tipping point.
5
To paraphrase the Emperor Joseph II when he criticized Mozart, in the Movie "Amadeus", Thomas Friedman's article suffers from "too many words".
"The liberal global order" is collapsing for the same reason every socialist program collapses: socialism fails. Or, as the biologist and myrmecologist, E.O. Wilson, once remarked about socialism, "Great idea, wrong species".
Socialism is an insane system for organizing human society, and it is pointless working out the details of why it fails in any one particular case. Socialism failed in Russia for one reason, in China for another reason, in Venezuela for yet another reason. It does not matter what new and ingenious socialist program you want to implement. It will fail for some as-yet unexpected reason, but it surely will fail.
Some years from now, when historians and economists pick through the smoking ruins of the EU, they will work out the specific reasons it failed. The details will be interesting, but we already know the inevitable outcome: failure.
Thomas Friedman should have saved himself a lot of time and bandwidth by summing up his article in three words: failure is inevitable.
1
You wrote "Ever since World War II, the liberal global order that has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history has been held up by two pillars: the United States of America and the United Nations of Europe, now known as the European Union"
This is a flawed premise to a flawed article.
As someone who was born in Europe, grew up in Africa and currently lives in the US, I do not view the US or the EU as pillars of freedom and prosperity.
They are pillars of business and self interest.
They have created and supported dictators and colonial economic policies in the world for over 100 years. Just take a look at the presidential election in Cameroon in October 2018, stolen once again by the 85 year old dictator after 36 years of regime. The people of Cameroon are fighting and protesting but they are up against the regime, France, Israel (the personal guards of the presidents) and the US. Cameroon is not viewed as a recipient of prosperity but as a land with some resources to exploit and business is booming. So it is good business to keep the status quo with the dictator in place against the will of the people.
I see similarities between Cameroonians and the "gilets jaunes": the small people are continuously crushed by giants. And those giants include the US and the EU that you call pillars of freedom and prosperity.
5
This is an embarrassing article from someone who doesn't really understand what is happening, and advocates policies that will only deepen and widen social fracture. Right now across the developed world people (based on opinion polling) do not want more multiculturalism - Thomas's idea is to have free-flowing borders and to offer vague assurances about managing things better. That makes no sense, not one concrete policy has been advocated by Mr Friedman. And talk about adherence to EU budgetary rules by France: Macron's proposal breaks all of those.
Truly Mr Friedman's time as the geopolitical zeitgeist commentator is over. Does anyone remember when he was praising the "flat world" brought by technology? Like anyone who does not understand the implications of what he wants, he conspicuously failed to realise that there will be losers in all of this and they needed support and help. And here he is, offering the same vague policy solutions that do nothing other than deepen and entrench divisions.
Mr Friedman, please just step away from your computer and give your commentary a rest.
2
I just can't understand how such an educated, experienced person who's so well traveled could write "he liberal global order that has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history." I wish Mr. Friedman would visit Dacca or Calcutta sometime.
1
If Friedman could start and end every sentence with 'globalization' he would. Since his 1999 publication The Lexus and the Olive Tree, where he bemoans the existence of one Taco Bell in Doha, Qatar, appalled by its existence, enraged by this cultural eye-sore, Friedman has taken his self-appointed place as Grand Observer of Everything. In all cases, according to Friedman, it can be boiled down to greed and short-sightedness. On this I agree wholeheartedly. But that is like saying cause of death was heart-stoppage.
Friedman’s penchant for turning to technology as Superman, here to save the day, has been going on twenty years. I’m not sure how many more technological ‘breakthroughs’ we can afford. In 1999, Friedman cited the ‘marvel’ of splicing a gene into corn, so that insects who ate the corn would not only be repelled, but would eventually die from an abdomen-rupturing reaction. Friedman cited this as an example of progress we need to make for a better future. Since then we have come to find that GMO’s are fraught with peril.
The French are not deserving of the puritanical, righteous light Friedman paints them in. These “Yellow-Vesters” are rioting against what? The equivalent of a 6-cents per gallon fuel tax increase was set to go into effect in January. That was the supposed ‘last straw’. Several elderly people died in the staged traffic jams choreographed by these rioters. Once again, I feel Friedman has it upside down. These are not heroes.
1
Thom, the French-German axis is dead. But there are new axes forming. The Netherlands, Nordics, Ireland, ... are forming a “Hanseatic” bloc that is no longer just accepting decisions being made over their heads by the leaders of the big countries.
I think the EU will eventually dial back Schengen and Italy will drop out of the eurozone to be able to devaluate, maybe other debt ridden countries too. The increased borders in Europe will provide the opportunity for Britain to look at reentering the Hanseatic part.
Europe will change, but is still looking much better than America...
1
Tom,
Everything you say is true… but you and the pundits continually miss two fundamental “feelings” among the middle and working classes. Firstly we know our politicians no longer work for us. They work for corporations under a legal system that places the managers of those corporations above the law. Think – how many bank executives do jail time now? Or pharmaceutical executives who knowingly sell deadly medicaments. and then simply pay a fine paid for by shareholders… while the managers still collect their bonuses.
And on the left? In Europe its becoming a stranger in your own country, where mass migration to suit a few corporations combines with left wing virtue signaling... and an active left-wing denigration of western culture in general.
So for the right.. the middle class feel the legal system no longer works, rather it protects the rich while the poor pay... and by the Left, they feel colonized, in the literal sense of the word.
West Africa and Arab immigration in to Europe is different to American migration… over 100 hand grenades thrown at police in a single year in Sweden proves that (the government admits to 50). American migration by contrast is by related groups with an enormous subconscious shared culture.
Cultures do clash is Europe.. something the left doesn’t seem to want to admit. The solution of course is to talk and understand… but the left won’t even allow conversation in this area ...so people migrate to the extremes
And that’s how we got where we are
1
Brexit and the end of Europe courtesy of Merkels dangerously naive immigration virtue signalling. Within a hundred years two German chancellors have destroyed Europe. THis time no Martial plan will save it.
And take heed Democrats: Overpopulation and its offspring: Climate change and mass migration, are the only real issues of the future that no politician can ignore.
2
Congratulations you've won. There's no turning back. The only solution is population reduction. It looks like that was the idea all along. Maybe that's why you can't talk about it.
1
All of the blame for the Brexit fiasco does not go to the party hacks. The entire population is at fault for not having enough sense to realize that the process was not truly democratic. In the U.S. and U.K systems of government democracy is a representative government. A Parliament or Congress must deliberate over issues, and the citizens elect representatives for this. Governing by popular vote is what Plato called mob rule. Yes, they couldn’t be bothered with giving this to the Parliament. The uninformed, willfully ignorant, deluded, and just plain stupid, had to take part in this monumental decision, while being bombarded by lies, propaganda, and Russian disinformation! And a super-majority was not required. A very-thin majority was plenty of justification for drastically changing their economy and relationship with Europe and the world. This simple-minded version of democracy is pretty much guaranteed to lead to disaster – and guess what Brexit delivered?
Under the U.S. Constitution, a treaty with other countries requires a super-majority of the Senate (our upper house) to approve. We don’t even allow our lower House of Representatives – let alone the general population – to participate in making the final decision. There is very good reason.
1
Is it is the end of Europe, or of European culture which had escaped the onslaught of hordes of invaders from the middle ages which had destroyed the heritage and culture of most of Asia, notably South Asia?
1
For Marie Lemoine, Macron is their Louis XVI, for me, Trump is our Marie Antoinette. Maybe is also the end of the USA as we know it. Maybe there are some above the law and many left behind.
Until two years ago the earth was flat for Thomas Friedman and it was just a matter of time for us all to become connected, wealthy and happy.
And now we are suddenly doomed? Not that he is not right about reasons to worry. Brexit is a stupidity without precedent, the Russians are a threat again and so is China. But hey, remember the seventies and sixties? Riots in France are not new. And as Friedman himself says: the opposition has no leader. Macron is learning fast and can turn things around. And Italy has a weird government? Remember Berlusconi? Nothing really new over there. The end of the occident has been predicted so often it is almost a cliche.
EU states know very well that they are worse off outside the Union. If they once thought otherwise, Brexit taught us all a lesson. Come on Mr Friedman, we have enough prophets of doom, don’t follow that path.
Perhaps the progressive agenda of decades of driving down wages and flooding all the countries with people from the Middle East (who do not share their values) is causing a problem?
Will the left ever admit its policies are flawed before it is too late? Will anyone speak out against its agenda?
Far left politically correct ideas are very flawed. I will leave it to George Carlin to sum up another flawed politically correct movement:
"Now, all of this stupid nonsense that children have been so crippled by has grown out of something called the "self-esteem movement." The self-esteem movement began around 1970, and I'm happy to say it has been a complete failure. Studies have repeatedly shown that having high self-esteem does not improve grades, does not improve career achievement, it does not even lower the use of alcohol, and most certainly does not reduce the incidence of violence of any sort, because as it turns out, extremely aggressive, violent people think very highly of themselves. Imagine that; sociopaths have high self-esteem. Who'da thunk?"
1
Meanwhile, China is prepared. With its highly centralized government and a Chinese population under constant surveillance, it has discovered the secret to the 21st century sauce. Quietly buy up assets in other countries. Build infrastructure where none existed, on terms third world countries can never pay back and voila, you have colonized the planet. You can be super adept at change when you don't have to think about pesky things like human rights and pollution. China has quietly bought up real estate around the world, just ask Hongcouver, paying just above current market value and then driving up the market. They've bought dairies in Australia, ports in Sri Lanka and built a train line from Nairobi to Mombasa, that the Nigerians can never hope to pay for, so they'll have to rent it. They are building dams in Laos and governments in Cambodia. Malaysia recognizes that it has been colonized. Even in tiny Jamaica, try to find a grocery not run by Chinese. They bring in their own people to run them and what they can't buy (intellectual property) they steal. Yes, Putin is thrilled over the row going on in Europe, it diverts attention away from his power grab in the Ukraine. And while the left squabbles in Europe and America over what to do with third world immigrants and Muslims, China exports their humans and 're-educates' their Muslim minority. They look at birth control as a practical problem and the only migrants you'll find there are the Asian wives for men.
1
Awesome high level analysis of what ails us. Including that us is not just the US. We may or may not be an Exceptional country, but are not a exception. Best column of the year, and not just Friedman or the the NYT
The end of Europe came to being the 28th of July 1914.
Perhaps the serious mess Western nations have gotten themselves into could have been prevented if their leaders hadn't paid any mind to globalist propaganda like 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree.' Yes, Mr. Friedman, you were one of the first journalists to come out and talk up globalism like it was the second coming, and the dead end the Europeans find themselves is in your own words directly a result of globalist economics and social policy. I suppose this article is a mea culpa in a way, or at least i hope it is.
3
Thank you. Headline: Neoliberal Cheerleader Notices Angry Downsized Mob That's Been Building For Decades Outside.
1
Once again, and deeply, eloquently so, Friedman is right Stop pining for antiquated coal mining jobs, for absurd union demands for auto assembly line jobs. Learn an actual skill and stop being bitter at "the man" and corporate fat cats. And maybe, just maybe, stop voting for millionaires who really have no idea or interest in who you are or how well you live once you leave the voting booth.
1
Well, it looks like "the end of history" didn't last long, did it?
It's difficult to conceive of how the implementation of Friedman's worldview over the past 25 years could have led to a worse outcome.
Globalization has been a colossal failure for tha working and middle classes of the West, and they're only just beginning to find their voices. They are angry, and are only going to get angrier in the coming months and years.
On the other hand, China did quite well, indeed, and is laughing at the economists, foreign policy experts, pundits, and Op-Ed columnists who were such useful idiots to them for the past 25 years.
And so now the developed world is imploding, American Capitalism has been thoroughly discredited, and democracy is in retreat in developed and developing countries, alike.
And the other pillar of his worldview, Silicon Valley and those wonderful "disrupters", is in free fall as well. And they are about to start to go exponential in destroying jobs, at all skill and wage levels, at an astonishing rate, as the Age of Automation gathers momentum.
This may very well be the tipping point that will unleash chaos and violent social unrest, on a global scale, in developing and developed countries alike.
It would be nice if just one of the "thought leaders" that got us into this mess would just come out and say "I'm truly sorry. I really did mean well but it turns out I was wrong about just about everything, and I apologize to humanity for the pain and suffering that people like me have caused, and will cause in the future."
4
France and “Brussels” — shorthand for the bloated bureaucracy that administers the E.U. — share two characteristics:
- dirigisme — the compulsion, bordering on mania, to exercise total control from a designated political center; and,
- scleroticism — the mindset behind the dirigiste impulse. Intellectual rigidity. Unresponsiveness caused by age. Inability or reluctance to adapt to new or unanticipated circumstances, or compromise with those deemed weaker than oneself, or social inferiors;
deadly together, as they are here. Populist rebellions against “Paris” and “Brussells” flare along the periphery because those deemed social inferiors — provincials squeezed by taxation while thwarted and hamstrung by circumscribed opportunities — have nothing left to give or more to lose. “All roads lead to Rome”, but from a bystander’s perspective if all are impassable none can take you there; the Provincials’ situation. The status quo might be unendurable but the proposed cures will almost certainly kill the patient (UK, Italy, Greece). But continued deiberate inaction to maintain state control (Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal) must end in a train wreck.
No way out, forward, or back.
This happens to be true for Putin, too; and Trump, soon to be overthrown by a “Deep State” coup (others refer to it as “due process under law”) as he will undoubtedly insist after the hammer falls. But only Putin can obtain some kind of temporary respite by having somebody extrajudicially killed.
2
Mass immigration is at the heart of everything.
It is destroying everything.
6
Ever since World War II, the liberal global order that has spread more freedom and prosperity around the world than at any other time in history has been held up by two pillars: the United States of America and the United Nations of Europe, now known as the European Union.
http://election.result.pk/
“Disconnecting in a connected world is nuts.”.
Absolutely true Mr. Friedman. The disconnected nomenclature – who prefer to be called The Global Elite – have no idea whatsoever about Consequences in the modern world.
Vacuous phrases like “the difference between being right and doing it right…” are an example of the disconnection of The Global Elite.
Just ask the question “being right – FOR WHOM?” and you have the answer.
2
You write:
“But robotics and artificial intelligence and outsourcing and Chinese imports have wiped out a lot of middle-skilled routine white-collar and blue-collar work.”
Q: Is “Chinese imports” really a euphemism for wage-slavery systems? Of course, I do not imply that the U.S. and other economies around the world are free of wage-slavery systems, but the NYT itself has reported some cases of large numbers of laborers virtually, if not literally, imprisoned in China.
If so, to what extent? Is this euphemism-covering over a stark, unspeakable reality, part of the danger we face at this historic “hinge” in civilization? How? How do I fight that dark cloud looming over humanity, nay, my children and grandchildren?
1
Put people first.
Globalism can wait.
Robotics can wait.
Artificial intelligence can wait.
Chinese sweatshop outsourcing can wait.
Porous borders can wait.
What has the internet revolution wrought for us, really?
An oligarchy of sinister, deceitful billionaires like Zuckerberg, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft. They lie, steal our personal data, and use the data to exploit us. They hide their obscene profits in off shore accounts. They collude with each other.
What would FDR do in a world like this?
What would Eisenhower do?
Bring it home.
Raise taxes on the rich.
Raise tariffs on China the cheater.
Rebuild our infrastructure.
Build affordable housing.
Pay teachers more.
Reimburse farmers for the risks they take, with each crop planted.
Solar panels on every roof, over every parking lot.
Quit arguing about global warming, and invent global cooling.
Make the oil of Saudi’s murderous trillionaires obsolete.
Medicare for more, for everyone with chronic and life-threatening diseases that insurers hate covering and always evade and deny.
Put people first.
It’s not that complicated, really.
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@Toms Quill
Robots and AI not only can't wait, they won't. What? Pass a law against them?
And it is surely most complicated. As Mencken may have said, "There is a solution to every problem: simple, quick, and wrong."
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@Toms Quill And, might I add, enforce the antitrust laws that are on the books. Google IS a search monopoly.
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@Toms Quill
"What has the internet revolution wrought for us, really?"
Says the man sipping coffee while writing his thoughts on a website, built off of infrastructure invented by Microsoft, waiting for his gifts to arrive from amazon. It is all so simple, just do these literally impossible things to fix everything magically.
Did it ever occur to you that no, it really is that complicated. Your suggestions are simple platitudes that remind me of "Build a wall to keep people out". Sounds great, resonates probably, but really really really isnt the right way to go about things.
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Talk about being late to the dance. Anybody can write about this stuff after it's already happened. Just to toot my own horn, I published an essay, "Terra Instabilis," in the Humanist in 2011 (it was reprinted with corrections in ISBN 978-0073528755). It's obvious that in Europe the economies of the south (Italy, Greece, Iberia) cannot keep up with the more productive economies of the north. There's no way to change this, and it means the euro will disappear at some point. The EU itself is fraying and France, which straddles north and south, faces massive economic, social, and debt problems that could indeed lead to a modern version of 1789.
Meanwhile conflict between classes in both Europe and the US is being driven by globalization and immigration. Nothing can actually be done to ameliorate this in a fundamental way. The "losers" will simply have to adapt or die out, which happened at the time of the Industrial Revolution and in other periods of massive social and economic change. There is no political program that can put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Finally Thomas Friedman the unapologetic champion of globalization is forced to acknowledge that the way globalization has been carried out has created a lot of problems for labor. He drank the kool aid that globalization was more or less just every country specializing in what they do best.
He ignored Ross Perot’s idea that it would also largely be a giant sucking sound of manufacturers moving production to countries with cheap labor rates, no requirement for health insurance or retirement, and low environmental regulations. Which led to a race to the bottom for pay and benefits for many laborers.
And automation was embraced because it benefitted the owners and investors, to hell with the laborers it replaced. Besides laborers will just find no jobs like they have in the past. Except many are finally acknowledging that this time is different and the total number of jobs is shrinking.
And the world struggles to shift to a more climate friendly and sustainable economy.
All because the rules of globalization were written without proper representation from labor and without proper representation on environmental issues.
6
Friedman is right that the middle classes were built on “high-wage, middle-skilled” jobs; he is half right that the absence of these jobs is caused by the rise of robotics and AI alone. Another cause is technology development over the last several decades has favored those technologies that do not require jobs for their implementation.
There has been a quantum shift in the primary force driving technolgy development, away from those technologies judged to be doable to those able to attract the necessary investment. And new technologies that are labor intensive return less to an investor with no specific interest in job creation and job loss.
The need is to level the playing field in the competition for technolgy development investment, assigning a benefit/cost for technologies that create/eliminate jobs.
1
As a facet of the major problem of wealth inequality, the problems of the Country are not so much problems for the rich. So the hoi polloi get inadequate health care, poor transportation, jobs that don’t pay a living wage, inadequate education, and industrial pollution of air and water.
Unfortunately for the rich, global warming will catch up with them, although it will take longer to reach walled enclaves built around oases in exotic locales.
Solving the Country’s problems is not impossible, and would employ most everybody. But these jobs are in the government sector, unfunded and scoffed at by the rich.
Hey, how about some infrastructure modernization, folks, instead of collecting ten-million dollar artworks for penthouse apartments serviced by heliports.
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The problem of social discontent is not a French problem; it is a global problem. The fact that widespread social unrest has first emerged on the French streets reflects a long proud French history that is even celebrated in its national anthem.
In most countries, societal rewards are increasingly concentrated in the hand of business, professional and political elites. That some of these elites successfully channel public anger against immigrants is shameful (but admittedly temporarily successful).
The slow elimination of societal protections like decent pensions increases the profits of the shareholding classes; but promotes social insecurity.
Without reformers to lead the political process, the pressures that can lead to political anarchy can (and will) build up. Which will come first? Meaningful reforms or anarchy? The French might just provide a glimpse of the future of unreformed liberal democracy.
1
Less than 50% of inhabitants in France pay any income tax at all; only around 14% pay at the rate of 30%, and less than 1% pay at the rate of 45%.
Thus the yellow vests who are mostly low paid and the disaffected middle class who are struggling are paying for the 50% of those French citizens who do not work? You too would be trashing 5th Ave or Park Avenue in Manhattan if you for paying for 50% of the population that didn't work. The elite in this town consider "paying taxes as only for the little people" as those with money can buy the best tax avoidance strategies, no different than elitist in Paris. The yellow vest protesting model could easily morph into the same in America. Liberals are calling for free everything, no one needs to ever pay for anything programs, lest you are the working class or middle that has to pay for the rest. Only the rich and the poor can afford to be ultra liberal! Let's open the borders to eat cake!
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@Realist Have you looked at the statistics on who pays taxes in the US? About the same if not a higher percenttage who pay zero taxes. In California the % that pay no state tax is much higher. When you allow in between 12 and 20 million low skilled low education workers in the country both here and in France, do you really believe that wages can go UP? Those who believe in open borders are NOT those affected by its consequences. Obviously there are more problems, but you build a solid house by beginning at the foundation. When that is week nothing else will stand straight for long. In California we have 1/6th of the population and 1/3 of the illegal immigrants. Is it any wonder that the quality of education has gone down dramatically? This is a casualty that is ignored. Our politicians are just plain stupid. Or, worse, they understand all this and don't give a damn. You don't have to be heartless, but one needs to be intelligent. Trump was an early "yellow vest" event. But here the left just wants to call that simply a "racist" phenomenon. Just raising the minimum wage is not the solution. Removing the huge and costly low wage competition is deemed heartless by many, but it is also heartless and more so to ignore the plight of the low wage mass in our country. Trying to make up for it with more welfare is a sad solution which does nothing long term to insure any upward mobility which has been an historical norm.
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@Realist
This is grossly misleading. The French income tax system is relatively generous, with automatic discounts and reductions, so that a working couple earning up to about €28000 (not a misprint) pay no income tax, and a working couple with one child can earn up to about €38000 (again not a misprint) without incurring liability to income tax. It is therefore unsurprising that 50 percent of the working population pay no income tax. Obviously it does not mean that half of those eligible for work are choosing to play boules all day long, supported by the other half, which is now donning its yellow vests and rioting in protest. Many here would be delighted if Macron sensibly emigrated across the Channel and imported not only his genius (according to the NY Times, at least until recent events), but also the generous Gallic income tax regime.
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@Realist
It is surprizing how correct datas can be misinterpreted.It is true that 50% of Frenchmen do not pay income tax.For that reason practically none of the yellow jackets is paying any .That was not the tax they were protesting against ,they are not affected.Initially it was the increase of the taxes on diesel oil that were brutally raised to reduce French carbon impact at the same time the world oil price was at a three years high.
Taxes in France are high (46% of GNP!) ,but the main reason for that is the huge amount of redistribution: before taxes the 10% of the richest Frenchmen earn 22 times what the 10% poorest do.After taxes and benefits to the poor the ratio is down to 5.6 times. By any measure (Gini coefficient etc..) France is much less inequal than the UK or the US. But the sentiment of despair of the the people living in small towns who are victims of the loss of of manufacturing or farming jobs is very real and so is their resentment towards the well educated uper middle class which is the natural Macron electorate.
The yellow jacket revolt is very popular (up to 70% in polls are in favor of it) ,but the number of people activey involved is small (300 000 out of 66 million Frenchmen) .It is extremely difficult to forecast what will become of it since they have no doctrin ,no leaders and no clear agenda.
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Tom doesn't get it, but Trump gets it. That is why he wants to build a wall and he has other plans to control illegal immigration and open boarders. This is what Americans want and Trump is trying to provide them. Elites like Tom is trying to prevent Trump from achieving his goals. That will create turmoil in USA like what is happening in Europe. But it won't happen because Trump is smart enough to outsmart Tom.
No society should allow others to come and take over their society and change its culture and way of life and burden it. What is happening in Europe is this resistance. They have to follow Trump's leadership to solve their problems. In fact, most of Europe and Lain America are following him Trump. Too bad for Tom.
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Are you overlooking that Trumpism is public relations not politics: he inflated the country’s debt so dramatically that it will ruin the US in the next coming years. And I am not talking about the super-rich that will get to take the can, but those that projected their hopes on Trump’s aggressions: his voters, the working poor (or those feeling endangered by poverty).
The article mention the "United Nations of Europe" but it never existed. It used to be the "European Coal and Steel community" then the "European Economic Community" then the "European community" then finally the "European Union"
2
Well, in America we have one up on the French. We KNOW no one in government cares about anyone but the 1%. They've said it loud and clear. They've taken out ads. They even have a news network devoted to explaining how the current administration doesn't care...
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With all due respect, Tom, the economic policies for which you generally advocate in your colums (neoliberalism) are primarily what’s gotten us to this point. Globalized capitalism is increasingly leaving discarded workers and communities in its wake, and the proposed solutions “work more jobs, learn new skills until you drop dead” are farcical. Even the solutions you propose Macron undertake are solutions that primarily benefit the rich and upper middle class first...and we’ve seen the effects of trickle-down enough times in this country to see how well that works.
In the end, you’re advocating for the continuation of a system where an individual’s worth is determined solely by the value he or she brings to the market. There is an inherent lack of humanity in such a way of looking at things, and we’re starting to see the cracks.
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@Vin - global capitalism has, in fact, worked well for almost every nation on earth. Look no further than China. What has not worked to the benefit of the middle class is the inevitable, unstoppable shift away from manufacturing jobs toward automation and white collar jobs. The world is changing very quickly, and the everyman has not found a way to keep up. The amassing of wealth by the super rich (half of whom, ironically, belong to the same party as the angry, disenfranchised anti-elite Trump supporters) is not nearly as inexplicable as the common man's apparent disinterest in accepting change and preparing himself for it. To say that 50% of Americans need to go to school and learn to do something new and different with their lives is an understatement. The alternative? Do nothing but howl at the moon...
If the problem is that high-wage jobs are disappearing, and the distribution of income is becoming more unequal, how can the solution be to make regressive changes to the tax system? Friedman's analysis does not make sense.
1
France is today's loudest shout against status quo, and other countries will follow. The EU is unique because it is more than just one country. Ever notice from past years that whatever Brussels dictates to the EU members is always something they don't want, or don't like. Whether it is finances, like budget constraints, interest rates, loan repayments, etc. it is always instructing countries they must comply. Why don't we read about how happy the EU is, that nations are working together to make their people better off? So, that is the EU's problem. It is what happened in France. Call it income distribution problems, taxes, healthcare, whatever, but governments are not listening to their people. One can not blame it all on automation, computers, AI, globalization, far right party, nationalism, trade agreements, etc.
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@Me Too The EU can not dictate anything to the member countries. It's just the old blame game: The nation's leader agree on something on the european level, and then they go home and blame the EU. Works with americans, too, obviously.
@Mark B
Strictly speaking, you are correct, but in the end, it achieves the wrong result; national politicians and civil servants collude with EC civil servants in imposing policies unwelcome to their electorates, arguing that the objectives are consumer and employee benefits, and that the momentum is irresistible. Meanwhile, lobbying at EC level is practised by wealthy international corporations.
@Colin Elliott As if the EU invented lobbying. I guess the UK will be lobbying-free after Brexit.
Alongside of globalism and rapacious capitalism, we need leadership that looks at the nature of work and working people.
Do we really need robots instead of humans at check out counters at big box stores and drugstores? Might retail not fare better if there were still salespeople who know what they are doing, rather than buying things on line and endlessly sending them back? What if we went back to the day when repairing an appliance was better than buying it new, or purchasing insurance on it which is the equivalent of tossing it out and replacing it with new junk? What if quality were valued over the vast quantity?
Germany, in the recent past, made decisions to manufacture goods of high quality that required developed skills over the mass produced junk that comes from China. Its economy lost some money, but its people were employed with pride.
People who don't live in cities could still work and make things highly regarded, and desired, in this model. I suppose that this means tariffs. While no trumpster, I think we need to protect the small farmers, artisans, and skilled workers against the junk coming in from overseas that is both cheap and exploits natural resources because it is designed to be used and quickly discarded.
5
Friedman's proposed solutions to the problems he has identified—rising inequality and an alienated rural class—will go nowhere. His solutions, implicit in his praise of Macron's initiatives, involve retraining workers for better jobs and supply-side oriented tax cuts. I think that those are now pretty much proven empirically to be unlikely to help in capitalism's current crisis.
It also conveniently avoids a topic that he refuses to face: there has to be a major government-facilitated redistribution of wealth away from the rich. The obvious solution is that labor should work less for more money. In a scenario right out of Marx, the rich are throttling the goose that laid the golden egg, and they must be stopped before they bring all of human civilization into a very dark place. We're half-way there now. I could conjecture why Friedman cannot face this obvious fact but I will refrain.
I will point out, however, that his applause for Macron's attacks on "bloated" rail unions is diagnostic. I always find it offensive when rich people like Friedman, and he is very, very rich, begin to begrudge high wages and good working conditions to those less privileged than they are.
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@John Rundin Teally, the issue with unions is less about pay and benefits than it is about their tendency to restrict innovation. Unions usually don’t stop at pay and benefits. They creep into business decisions and processes. Unions become hyper focused on maintaining a status quo and fight necessary change.
1
@John Rundin This "government facilitated" solution would have to be international in scale. Currently corporations and the wealthy are free to move their business to wherever taxes and wages are lowest. This is not so much a problem to be solved as it is a fact of life in the real world.
1
@John Rundin One thing that is forgotten in all of this is that the modern day Robber Barons are all wealthy LIBERALS and therefore protected by the LIBERAL political establishment since the golden goose of money flows that way. If Zuckerberg or Bezos were Republicans you'd see the clamoring for Trust Busting from the Left and the Media become far more intense!
2
You forget that Fillon, of the center-right was expected to win the elections until allegations of improper employment of his family member emerged (conveniently just after the primaries and their was no viable alternative). I have every reason to believe that Macron's buddies in the Ministère des finances were responsible for that "leak". Macron's party, LREM, is a fantasy of political newcomers whose only unifying belief seems to be in Macron himself. His rhetoric may seem reassuring to liberal democrats, but his behavior certainly should not.
The best description of France's current situation is Christophe Guilluy's France Periphérique, which describes the divide between the urban elites and the rest of the country (the actual majority).
1
@Harland
And to that list of books describing France's current situation, I would add "Submission" by Michel Houellebecq, which describes the social-political constraints now tugging at France's cultural identity, but on a more academic level.
2
"The end of Europe" has a dramatic ring to it, and it's misleading. We're talking about the reality of a political and bureaucratic institution (the EU) in crisis, the growing sense of angst/malaise/disaggio in European society, and the possibility of raised barriers to the flow of money and people across European borders. These result from the failures of Europe's leaders over the last 30 years: creating an incoherent monetary system that had a good sound bite, responding to the 2008 crisis with austerity instead of stimulus, killing Greece slowly, responding inadequately to wars and poverty to the south and their resulting immigrant flows north. Bad policies really do make a difference, over time.
As for Europe, it's not going away, or at least for a few more decades, when the descendants of Muslim and/or African immigrants outnumber the traditional Europeans. Time will tell what European societies will look like then.
A Caliphate Europe? Or a Muslim Reformation or Enlightenment leading to a happy mixing of races and cultures in a prosperous, secular, and democratic society? Anything's possible, but my guess is somewhere between these bookends.
4
There is a lot to digest in France's unrest. "Macron appears uncomfortable with normal people, ...there is a certain contempt for them.” Sounds like the infamous "let them eat cake." Same goes with Trump's gang. History follows patterns even if it doesn't really repeat itself.
When the final report on "Arab Spring" is written, the conclusion has to be "Don't Ever Repeat It!" Same goes for Brexit referendum. The lessons are not lost on Chinese leaders. As one look around the world for any island of stability, what does one find? Not where inexperience in governing is worn as a badge of honor in the so-called Democracies like USA & France!
Despite what some would describe as Draconian measures against potential jihadist terrorists, China stands out. The majority of China's population is optimistic, as reported in the latest NY Times China series. Friedman quoted Dominique Moïsi, "... when so many roads now lead to Beijing..." Is there any wonder?
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@Observer
Thanks for this information, Observer. Living near East Chinatown in Toronto, I want to add that daily meet polite, warm, exceptionally honest people who clearly come from what used to be called 'The Far East'. Of course, there are some shady 'Far Easterners' too! But the ones I talk with, in English, bring the tradition that all that we call entities, of every description, are forms of energy. If pnly we could remember that -- something that Einstein taught us years ago -- as a daily reality, our Western efforts to communicate and heal would undergo quanta of improvement!
1
@Observer,
Uhh, no. You're wrong about a lot of things.
Among them, you said "Despite what some would describe as Draconian measures against potential jihadist terrorists, China stands out."
I've heard experts who know the region worrying about the 'jihadi factories' that Mr Xi has set up. Draconian measures breed violence because they are a form of violence, detonators, so to speak.
When the (thwarted) attack on the Chinese legation in Karachi was reported, one of these experts turned her eyes to the ceiling and said "Here we go."
The (metaphorical, legendary) Silk Road was *from/to* China, not *in* China.
2
The human struggle always depends on civilization and every one's age, and now Europe becames an old, that results the ageing of Europe's civilization.
Europeans already lost their Culture and their values through democry, they lost their ancestor's heritage
Every civilization has it's time, and now is the end of the Europe.
1
Beware of leaders who offer grandiose promises without providing any specifics about how those promises are going to be achieved.
Beyond the inherent nastiness and greedy selfishness of Donald Trump, his pie-in-the-sky promises are what have caused a lot of economic woe in America.
Those empty promises spread quickly to Europe, in terms of Trump’s belittling the European Union, his mysterious fixation with an aggressive Vladimir Putin and the rise of nativist Trump wannabes in Europe.
And, of course, in Britain, Trump encouraged the foolish cries for Brexit, strongly implying that America would be there to help. Turns out, that was a lie, and Trump’s America has been complicit in a bizarre assisted suicide for the Brits.
Emmanuel Macron was an attractive person to Donald Trump, because Macron had the intelligence and classy style which has always escaped Trump. Macron, moreover, can match Trump in the arrogant belief that personality triumphs over substance.
The provincial, working-class French realize that they have been left behind, and they lash out against Macron and his urban intellectuals in Paris.
The rural, working-class Americans realize that they have been left behind, and they lash out on behalf of Trump against the educated urban elite in Washington.
Europe and America both will survive this. The chickens have come home to roost, but logic will prevail.
That is already happening in the United States.
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@sdw
This is not about 'Trump'. Or 'Hillary' (or Barack, Bill, or Dubya).
The culprit is the American-style capitalism, vulture-style, largely unregulated and speculation-based, that has created momentous crises, first the 1929, that became one of the underlying causes that led to WWII; several followed afterwards, most recently in 2008, the effect of which we all still feel. Both - and others in between - originated in America.
Europe - partially to counter the appeal from the East of the birth-to-death social programs and full employment was somewhat 'cushioned' thanks to social-democratic policies.
I do not believe, that 'Europe and the US will survive this'. Europe - maybe, if they collectively embark on a different direction - without the UK it will be much easier. But not America, I'm afraid.
8
@sdw
You say that Trump encouraged Brexit, and that he is complicit in 'suicide'.
Trump had no influence whatever on our referendum, and very little following his election some months later.
He is treated with some scorn, here, so the BBC and other committed Remainers associate him with Brexit at every opportunity, but in my opinion, despite what he may have said, the phenomena are unrelated, although there may be some common factors. (Farage was unique in associating himself, and did himself no good.)
Brexit does not depend on a trade agreement with the USA, indeed our trading with her currently is more satisfactory than with the rest of the EU, and we don't have to suffer additional costs in order to do so.
Furthermore, while I value defence cooperation with the rest of Europe (if they are willing), we will always be close allies of the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I find the EU too eager to create a United States of Europe as a rival to the USA, which would only create problems, if it were successful.
3
@waldo
My many Canadian friends are flourishing here in the US and would never go back. They love our Hyper Capitalism and the ability to prosper and get better Healthcare.
We have much nice golf courses too.
[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.
This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900.” From Richard Rorty's Book "Achieving Our Country"
The Yellow Vests will soon be here
I can understand why they're upset just because public housing is only for immigrants. And very few new ideas and talent come across those open borders in masses -- the talented and innovative come in with visas. We can have the talent and new ideas without having millions of functionally illiterate, poor newcomers.
7
This writer is infamous for overreaching in his generalizations, assessments, predictions, and blindness to alternatives; but he is also recurrently irritatingly observant. This is the most alarming column I've seen since the rise of Trump, principally for implying the possibility that he "matters" even less than we thought, as the cheerleader of the breaking up of a system which would be falling apart anyway. He has been such a useful villain, in the way Merkel had been such a useful angel - we had thought.
Collectively, Western nations blindly encourage their own destruction by supporting policies that permit unchecked migration across our borders while struggling middle and working class taxpaying citizens get stuck with the welfare bill. Given that there are approximately 6 billion people living in poor, overpopulated, often violent third world countries, how sustainable is that ‘open door’ migration policy exactly?
‘....tired, poor, huddled masses’ ? That’s an apt description of the American citizenry. No, we cannot save the world and everyone in it. Attempting to do so will only bring about our demise.
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@Shenoa - Hyperbole seems to be your strong suit. There is no such thing as an "open door" migration (sic) policy, neither here nor in Europe. The very concept is preposterous, spawned by right wing media to stoke the fears of armchair nationalists who have been fooled into thinking our nation is "under assault"..."it's a crisis!"..."an invasion!". The xenophobia, fear and loathing is deplorable but not entirely surprising given the results of the 2016 election.
23
@Shenoa We either help their countries improve so that they don't migrate or we accept that they are coming. With Climate Change that the Right wants to close their eyes to, it's only going to get worse.
Open your eyes and your heart and a little bit of wisdom. Your attitude is making things worse!
18
@Shenoa ‘....tired, poor, huddled masses’ Yes, it made for a nice poem, and was an appropriate immigration policy in the 19th century. But in the 21st century it's a recipe for disaster.
11
Some corrections are needed:
Yes the "city slickers" as represented by Macron and his troups are remarkably arrogant toward the rest of France:
Macron once said at a start-up incumbator in a railways: "This is a great place, you can just open a door and see these people _who are nothing_ "
The majority whip explained the situation so: "We have been _too intelligent, too subtle_, the French did not understand"
Look at Twitter and you will see superb cases of "let them eat brioche" and they are not originating in Saint Peterbourg but in Saint Germain des Près.
Secondly Mr. Friedman, as long as you consider the economical globalisation and mass migration to be inevitable but in fine good things, we will not be able to have a meaningful discussion, because this are the 2 key points where elite and people disagree in Europe. Experience, as well as a mounting stack of economic research tend to prove the people right and the elite wrong.
On this two questions one will have to change tack. No "education" the novlangue for propaganda will make the people change opinion
1
It’s a fourth turning. This is what happens during periods such as this. It’s the only thing Steve Brannon is correct about.
Good morning Thomas Friedman - your article about "The End of Europe" was a truly wonderful analysis of the problems facing the EU - well written and clearly understandable - it should me a Must Read - thank you
Add to the mix Saudi Arabia, where an astonishing 50% of the population is under the age of 25 and too many have no marketable skills since oil subsidies historically have allowed folks to live without “real” jobs or focused education/training. Now oil prices dropping, renewable energy sources growing and the Saudi “Mad Prince” is a global pariah whose only powerful friends are Donald J Trump and a handful of lesser kleptomaniacal autocrats. Talk about a recipe for disaster! Strong leadership and tough love needed ASAP.
1
Given the number of times members of the middle class in the West have been sold out by their own treasonous governments, it isn't surprising that they are rioting in the streets. It's only surprising that they haven't risen up in violent revolt. If elites in the West keep ignoring these problems, they do so at their own physical peril.
2
The lower middle class in France - let's say Paris - never had any money. What does a butcher make? Maybe 25,000 Euros? And he has to live in Paris or one of the banlieues and commute in on his own dime and it's not cheap living in Paris. You go to the Monoprix and see someone - a working man - with some cheese and bread, a jar of jam, a dozen eggs, maybe a chicken, sausage, some milk...right away he's forking over 50 Euros at the checkout.
Macron's theory - his supply-side streamlined "stimulus" theory - is the same bill of goods that the Republicans have been selling with their smoke-and-mirrors tax-cuts-for-the-rich and big corporations act in the US - since forever. And you know what? The "stimulus" doesn't stimulate. In France or America. There's no economic evidence that it does.
The rich shop at Louis Vuitton and Hermes and the middle class shops at the Monoprix - for clothes. And eventually - in France - enough is enough: you've got cars burning in the streets and people don't like to shop at Hermes with cars burning in the street in front of their trendy boutiques.
What you wonder is: "When will enough be enough in the good ol' US of A?
6
This is actually quite simple, Mr. Friedman. The single thing that allows for these "centers of free markets, free people and free ideas" is that they are democracies. Democracies which cannot provide the greatest benefits for the greatest number of the population are doomed to fail. The reason is self-evident if you think on it for but a minute.
The reason these democracies no longer deliver the goods to the masses is because they have been captured by their elite--an elite who are too busy lining their pockets and the pockets of their progeny into perpetuity--to be wise rulers. The "pro-investment tax reform" which Friedman extols is garbage. It has ruined the United States and will ruin France too. Extreme income inequality is incompatible with democracy. You can, though, achieve it in a repressive regime, which is what I fear the former centers of free markets, people and ideas are becoming.
Please stop fooling yourself.
1
The Yellow Vests feel alienated from their rulers - as do the Brexiteers - their rulers ultimately being Brussel's faceless bureaucracy . Aren't these the same people who voted for Trump ? You would seem to be advocating more of the same medicine that caused the revolt in the first place. [ A UK subject living in France.]
1
It also feels ominous that Angela Merkel is leaving, since she was such a steady leader for Europe and for the world.
1
The world is pregnant for a new world order; wars, mass demos will go on. Fragile EU may fall not because of Trump, Macron or Brexit or Putin. The world is trying to adopt the new world order at times very painfully.
Technology and globalization and tribalism have thrown Europe for a loop this century.. Trump's sneering at the EU and his America First kakistocracy has challenged our allies and enemies (hard to tell the difference under our 45th president). The middle classes in Europe -- squeezed by immigration from Africa -- are rebelling in vestes jaunes, just as the middle and lower classes in America are being squeezed by migrations from Central America, and the migrants themselves are being strangled by president Trump's rabid dog insistence on building a Chinese wall on our southern border.
As if the plight of the political world were not enough, the extinction of species due to climate warming is the greatest alarm of this century. Far worse than the quasi-nationalism, fascism, despotism of nations east and west today, the possibility of the extinction of mankind from planet Earth is a real and present danger. So we need to follow the 450 BC wisdom of Ecclesiastes these days -- everything is meaningless, life is chasing after the wind, there's a time to laugh and a time to weep.
1
In the UK, Never in my life did I ever think that I would witness such unprofessional ridiculousness within a government. They are baying like farm animals, the slings and arrows, I can no longer watch, I feel as if I'm in a barn yard on a primary school day trip. Day to day rarely are we privy to any intelligent discourse, we must witness endless tit for tat while we live with endless uncertainty as the clowns run the circus and worse appear to embrace some the most vile right wing hatred while making excuses for it. Elected ministers with their banal rhetoric designed to incite the masses and a big hug for the far right, we have gone completely mad.
I also can't excuse away those who were 'sold' a bill of goods and fell for it. Recognising that the resentment built has everything to do with those we vote for and taking responsibility for voting against ones own best interest time and again. In the UK for instance, why vote for candidates that are for austerity and then blame EU policies and immigrants for your decline in living standards? If we are a species so easily turned with rhetoric from a far right agenda I do wonder if there is any hope for us at all.
1
@Bluejil
I wasn't 'sold' a bill of goods. I voted to cancel the steady and cumulative transfer of democratic control to the EU and EC, in which MPs and civil servants have colluded for decades without public discussion. I understand that other EU nations find benefit from membership, but we don't, and I'll bet that the day another member finds it doesn't, it will wish to leave too, hence the EC's desperation to make it so difficult for us. That, and the fact they may lose our money, access to our market in preference to non-EU countries, fisheries, and so on. What is more, I do not trust the wisdom of EU decisions, or the idea of maximum standardisation.
2
Friedman has been comically wrong for so long it's hard to read this without chuckling. So now you've noticed that the global order, as conceived by the Masters of the Universe, is driving people into poverty, and into the streets (at best)?
The problem with the 'reforms' you and your ilk have been touting for so long is that you never address to whose benefit they are- cui bono.
The only thing that will save the global order now is if it comes to its senses and self-limits its greed. That means: equitable taxes; jail terms for investment and hedge funds that broke the law; breaking up of banks into component parts. On all of these counts, the Obama administration didn't do nearly enough - it was staffed by GS people, after all - and the price that the USA paid was Trump.
Europe must not repeat these mistakes. It must reform FOR the majority of people, or deservedly die.
4
As the middle class disappears, those affected are more impacted by immigration. Before it didn’t matter. Immigrants would be beneath the middle class. Now they are competing in the same boat. And The likes of Macron and Trump make it seem like trickle down policies will be the salvation. They essentially shift responsibility for leveling the playing field from the government to the private sector, hoping the private sector will do the right thing. And to those suffering, they sold them a bill of goods; help is on the way, jobs are coming back, protection for preexisting conditions will be saved, you life will be so much better. In effect they lied. In the U.S. the only thing that needs to be decided is, once the angry displaced Trump supporters open their eyes to see their plight is not changing, immigrants or no immigrants, what will they do? In other words will they stop attending rallies that accomplish nothing and head to the streets ? And will they trade their hats for a vest? Because a pathological liar is a guy who lies. No matter who the audience is. The press, his opponents, his wife, his lovers, the special counsel, the banks, his fellow world leaders, the judge, or his supporters. A fact of lying is once your life is supported by lies, it’s impossible to keep the audience straight.
37
@Walking Man
If you live your life lying there is no need to keep anything straight because nothing is straight. It's all a lie.
And if you lie about everything then really, you don't actually care about anybody else.
1
@Walking Man Actually, many Western countries are desperate for more hands for work. Trying to turn around the demographics has been a losing cause, going back to Ceaucescu in the 1980's. I recommend that people read George Friedman's "The Next 100 Years" and what it predicts about what will happen to US immigration policy a dozen years from now. He wrote it ten years ago ...
Thomas Friedman's message is loud, clear and very accurate.
As a champion of European unity (I was advocating a 'United States of Europe back in 1968, at the tender age of 18, ironically during the Paris riots led by Dany le Rouge), it breaks my heart to see the last semblance of humanity -- Europe is far more 'humane' and 'just' than any of the other continents -- implode under the weight of bloated, self-serving bureaucrats in Brussels and cowardly, incompetent leaders in the U.K., France and especially Germany.
The future of the E.U. looks dark indeed. I hope recent events serve as a wake-up call and not a harbinger of Armageddon. No E.U. nation can survive on its own. Are you listening, Boris?
4
@Hamid Varzi
Rubbish. Nations which are not members of the EU are not alone. It is quite possible to trade and form military alliances without giving up one's freedom, and I would go further; it is essential. It is fantasy to imagine that the EU will become integrated like the USA, unless a lot of good things get destroyed along the way.
1
@Hamid Varzi Hamid let me get the tiniest violin I can find to serenade your broken heart. To Hades with the EU and all such unelected, super-national, Soviet-style bureaucracies - and power to the nations, the people pf Europe (i.e., European people), the cultures of Europe. The future of the EU does not look dark - it looks bright now that The People are taking power into their hands.
1
@Cicero99
@Colin Elliott
Your call for the E.U.'s division must be music to Putin's ears.
As for "the cultures of Europe", only U.S.-centric commenters fail to notice the similarity between Europe's troubles and their own: There is as much cultural difference between Greece and Norway as there is between New Hampshire and Mississippi.
Your Schadenfreude is not only premature but misguided.
From the liberal, democratic nation-state perspective, cannot these developments be summed up simply as "tired of winning?"
1
Is iit a coincidence that this piece appears the same day as the exposure of Facebook as a fraud that sells personal data for profit, violating its agreements not to do so? The depersonalization of consumers is similar to the depersonalization of the electorate done by Macron. Both problems must be addressed or we will fall back to 19th century nationalism and its inherent slaughter.
1
Friedman talks about how foolish is is for the UK to leave the EU, but then he says, "In this world, highly centralized countries will fare much worse than decentralized ones."
The EU isn't just a centralized country, it's an entire centralized continent. One of the main selling points of Brexit is the loss of control the people in the UK have over the rules and regulations that govern their own lives.
2
@Marty
But, the people of the UK - through their elected representatives - actually make the rules and regulations that govern the EU.
OK, so it's a consensus - a democratic one - rather than a direct decision but the UK has been to the forefront in actually leading the development of standards and regulations.
These rules and regulations are generally very good, positive ones. Consumer rights, food standards, data protection and privacy rules are, in most cases, well ahead of the US, as are employment rights and many environmental protections.
Of course the British people don't complain about 'loss of control' when the rules and regulations benefit them. Accordingly, it's been necessary to construct a false narrative about 'bendy bananas', undersized condoms, the evils of energy saving lightbulbs and, most ludicrously (and directed at vulnerable old people) that ' the EU' was coming to forcibly confiscate their kettles and toasters.
Where necessary, ridiculous lies have been touted; for example, that scandals about food adulterated with illegal horsemeat or chemical contamination of Dutch eggs were the RESULT of EU regulations not, as was the truth, a criminal breach of those rules.
Yes, I'm strongly in favour of the EU but, definitely, not a single EU regulation in the UK's 45 year membership has negatively impacted me, personally.
@Marty
Yes. Many of us who voted to leave the EU did so because we feel that the EU is a slow, stodgy, undemocratic, suffocating, smug organisation, doomed one day either to fail economically, or to create what it says it helps to avoid; conflict.
Capitalism is flawed because when insufficiently regulated it invariably concentrates wealth to the very few at the top. It also ceaselessly tries and is usually successful at infecting democratically elected governments with corporate and dark money from the elite class. When you add racism to the mix whites that dominate the top of the capitalists heap can easily sway the less fortunate white masses to vote against their own interest as regularly occurs in America. The relatively recent influx of immigrants in Europe has set the stage for a similar dynamic of angry white populism there.
1
The CDC recently reported that life expectancy, after years of steady increases, is declining. Why? Three reasons: Chronic liver disease, suicide, and opioid overdose. In fact, the farther you travel away from mega cities the higher the suicide rate.
Wrap it up in as much socio-economic-psyco babble as you like, the plain and simple truth is that society is failing large swaths of its population. And this failure is a life and death struggle. At least the victims of the AIDS epidemic got marches and quilts, and broadway plays. This group...not so much. One story does not fit all across rural America and the European Union, but I bet what separates them is insignificant. Is it any wonder that the stirring rhetoric of populism finds a willing audience with people grasping for their last straw?
The .1% and the power elite had best wake up to reality. This coming recession may well be catalyst to upheavel which by comparison makes the “gillets juanes” seem like a garden party.
5
What is missing is the equilibrium that is necessary between those who make things and those who buy.
Normally those who buy also make the things and derive income from it.In between we have a seller who on account of margins decides to deprive the local makers from extracting the fruits of their labor.
Greed kills equilibrium and ultimately kills everyone.
1
What is scary is this is the only time I have seen Freidman lay out a problem with no solution. What do we do now?
We have allowed the less educated to remain less educated in a more complex world. We have allowed autocrats like Trump to come to power. We have allowed an inequitable world to become more inequitable and now we face the challange to hold it togather without a plan or even hope to pull a genny out of a hat.
We, this planet called earth, needs to pull a genie out a hat, but we cannot even locate the hat.
39
@sbanicki How is Trump an autocrat? Please explain.
@sbanicki Education will not save your job from automation. The so called high skill information worker jobs are the easiest to replace with computers.
1
@Jackson Personally, he is an autocrat by inclination. Just be thankful POTUS doesn't allow him full scope.
Funny Charles DeGaulle perhaps the last King of France and committed to democracy was adamant that a federal European Union could not possibly be a success. History has proven him right.
Since the US entry in WWI, it is the US that has maintained liberal Europe as liberal Europe. A democratic England, France and Germany are needed, but without the US war will be at the doors of Europe in no time. Moscow has never relented of their expansionist agenda, Germany's army's is likely the US army, and Turkey is still seething from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
It is the US that needs to rebuild the liberal order. And it has to battle many fronts at once. The first one is internal. Autocrats dress up in many uniforms.
@Ard
TBH, that's so last decade.
The EU has woken up to two truths, a) that Europe currently isn't able to control an expansionist Russia and b) that the US is no longer a reliable, or possible even desirable, ally.
That's where Macron's call for an EU Army is essentially a prelude to the re-militarisation of Europe. And why not? The EU's population is nearly 500 million and its GDP is equal to, or exceeds, that of the USA. The military might to deter Putin is a matter of political will. A will that is growing by the month.
Thanks guys. The US has done its bit.
What does economic growth mean? More of the same things that have been pouring out expensively from Europe, cheaply from China? Will that help people today? Think big Friedman. There's a revolution going on in the world today and no one yet knows what the result will be.
2
France (Macron) has the opportunity to demonstrate that true leadership requires to accept and own failure, acknowledge it and put a corrective plan together; it is no late for Macron to take such steps now and lead the way to a prosperous France...E.U.
I wonder whether it’s too late for Britain to vote to remain.
@John
NO.
Despite all the obstacles erected by increasingly desperate Brexiteers, it's not.
@John
Yes it is - we had all these arguments almost three years ago, and the decision was to leave. All that is happening now is that all those who believe fanatically in the EU idea, or who have vested interests in remaining in, or who believe in the continuing propaganda of the former, or who think it is something on which a 52/48 compromise is possible, are doing their utmost in an attempt to overrule that decision.
First, I know it’s tough to appeal to the “woke” crowd, but does Friedman really have to invoke the race of most of the protesters in Europe? As if they aren’t the vast majority of the population, and as if non-whites worldwide are happy with the state of things?
At the risk of making this personal, I don’t know that there is another person on the face of the earth who more embodies the ideas and policies spurring the protests — environmentalism and globalism — two issues Friedman has pushed for years. They have failed many. I’m afraid Friedman is unlikely to provide the antidote.
6
Acceptance of gay marriage and transgender rights should not be validated as one of the reasons for the recent violent protests. Social mores that were never ethical do not count as an example as to why people that feel left behind have fuel to burn and disrupt. I'm tired of opinions using any negative reaction to the progress of gay rights as a factor for the mess the world is in.
3
A success story that is only a success in New York, San Francisco, London and Paris is not a success story. It is a dismal global failure. The new global economy and multiculturalism has benefitted only the very elitist few and made our world both less safe and less interesting. This has hit Europe especially badly as the faceless, massive, intransigent, high handed EU bureaucracy is merely the face for a Germany once again attempting to ride roughshod over the Continent and dictate what people can and cannot do, down to absurd labeling on every packaged food in a dozen languages all illegible. At the same time it is ramming millions of unassimilable, unwanted alien invaders down the throats of ordinary citizens already unable to make ends meet, and totally uninterested in sacrificing and obliterating their national identities and cultural pride. Yes there is a revolution happening. One can only hope it is not too little and too late.
54
@JJ Gross - wait...I thought Jerusalem is one of the world's great multicultural centers, and has been for many centuries. That is not a gross exaggeration. That is fact. I detect more indignation and anger than ability to reason and tell the truth.
6
@JJ Gross
Oh, heavens. That Germany paranoia again.
It's like the Brexiteers here who bang on about how the UK saved Europe from Germany and now want us to run away from the EU because Germany's 'too strong'.
Germany gets a big say because it's the biggest economy by far. The biggest producer. The biggest employer, directly and indirectly. I was born in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and believe me, I'm not afraid of any German.
Illegible food labelling? Buy some glasses or look at the LARGE TYPE health 'traffic light' on the front of the pack. Or would you prefer the food labelling from other jurisdictions.. the sort that tell you little or nothing about what you're eating?
12
@JJ Gross
I think Friedman was using those three cities as examples of what he calls superstar cities.
There are many examples - NY, Boston, DC, LA, Seattle -in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Semi hysterical commentary of this sort doesn't do Friedman's credibility any favors. "The end of Europe" I don't think so. Yes France along with about four or five other countries including Germany are the major players in the EU. And yes France has been experiencing some social disturbances because the French government's decision to implement policies which are actually the right thing to do (and Friedman usually applauds incidentally). These disturbances then got hi jacked by the far left and far right as often happens and turned violent, but are no fading because of police action and mainly tax concessions made by the French government which will increase take home pay for many of the lower paid. He did not raise the minimum wage. If Friedman doesn't grasp this distinction then one can only roll one's eyes.
"France has a leader with no followers" No he's only the occupant of the presidency which has considerable powers in the 5th Republic and will be there for next four years and his party controls both houses of parliament. This from an alleged US foreign policy expert. Then god help American foreign policy.
1
@John
Seconded. Many times over.
What is it about Americans and the EU? That it's on the brink of collapse. Or, that it should be made so.
Very few here recognise the European Project as a positive - and as an enormous force for good that should be copied, not pitied.
1
Three of the structural fixes you claim were necessary to foster economic growth also fostered unacceptable levels inequality, social injustices, poverty and of course the rich getting richer on the backs of everyone else.
3
Well, it wont be the end of Europe. There are 27 (not counting UK) sovereign nations in the EU, not just France & Italy. The Gilets Jaunes will collapse in the face of Macron's climbdown and they will be listened to, though there is danger of exploitation by the right. There is a growing awareness of the price of globalization in the Western world and, the EU is paying the price of Merkel's too generous immigration policies. But they are working on all this. The UK, however, is in an abyss of its own making, a reality check after years of lies and right wing machination and a toxic press..
39
@A. Brown
" the EU is paying the price of Merkel's too generous immigration policies."
Not the UK. Thanks to that English exceptionalism and the UK's inevitable 'opt-out' from the horrors of migration, only a few hundred of the refugees drawn to Merkel's lifeline have reached Great Britain. No 'price' has been paid. Only a lot of hate in the columns of the Daily Mail.
I really get angry when I hear criticism of Angela Merkel and the 'million immigrants' initiative. A war in the Middle East - a war facilitated, if not started, by the US, UK and France, led to 3 million people fleeing their countries and seeking sanctuary further west. Huge numbers began washing up on EU shores, particularly Italian and Greek ones, leaving those countries unable to cope with the social and economic impacts of the migration.
What has 'the EU's' response been? More correctly, what has been the response of the EU's 28 member countries? Confusion, obfuscation, denial. From the UK's shrugged shoulders to the downright rejection by the Eastern Visigrad states. "No, sorry, not our problem, try elsewhere..."
Merkel stands head and shoulders above other European leaders in her determination to actually DO SOMETHING even as she saw the likely political cost. Left to the rest, we'd just have seen many more drowned Syrian infants on Mediterranean beaches whilst the bickering went on.
5
@A. Brown
Much of the press is against leaving the EU, while broadcasting, especially the BBC, which reaches far more of the population, is consistently against it. I don't recognise years of lies and right-wing machinations. I have heard many lies, and they come mainly from people arguing for Remain, while the wish to be in or out cuts across the normal party boundaries.
3
Quite the serious note on the state of both EU and countries w/i and w/o. Folly on Cameron's part, followed by May's inability to battle nasty Boris and weak Corbyn. And there are the others like Italy, beaten Greece, and those who wanted in like Hungary and now find themselves in a more weakened position. At least Macron reacted, whether nimbly or not. And our part, the US with our POTUS, hurts the world as well as those here. Tax cuts for the wealthy indeed! Is that why Trump liked Macron? Excellent insights imho. Thanks.
Why is Brexit regarded as a fantasy after a democratic referendum that made it so? It appears from this opinion article that democracy is a dreadful system when it delivers a vote that the losers will not accept. Is it democratic to have another vote? Perhaps Britons could just keeping having referendums until the winners lose. Some nations just don't want a higher power dictating who enters their nation. Have we lost all respect for the will of the people?
5
The scientific , legal, and moral enlightenment emanating from Europe shine worldwide. Europe must also undo its past Colonial, Imperial, hubristic, chauvinistic and predatory past that destroyed peoples and their countries and their values . The pendulum swung one way in Europe's favor, and now swings the other way , the day of retribution. So mote it be. Let those who understand, act.
It looks like the French are sick and tired of the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor and middle class (nice try, Macron, with the "environmental" tax that's really a tax cut for your wealthy donors). How long before this sort of unrest steams across the Pond and then "trickles up" to the wealthy here in the United States?
2
Just wait until the long-running economic boom in Germany ends and turns into a bust. Then the huge economic and social burdens we needlessly took on by letting in two million unskilled, unemployable, socially regressive people, who almost all live off welfare, will really begin to be felt. Things are going to be interesting then.
Already, these people completely clog up certain sectors of society, like the low-end housing market. Last year I applied for flats in Berlin where rents have doubled in the past few years. Run-down social housing, where in the past 10-20 families would apply, usually a mix of poor Germans and European foreigners, had lines of more than a hundred people, almost all of them islamic 'refugees' with 5+ children. That is our future. But it has not become really visible yet to those in the middle class or higher.
4
What is considered an average middle-class life style? The ability to drive alone anywhere you want, anytime you want? Filling your abode with unnecessary electronic gadgets and spending your time hooked up to them? Rushing around and eating food cooked by others instead of preparing it yourself. Buying furniture and clothing beyond the luxury known to kings in the past, then disposing of them months later or filling your closets and garages with items you never use? Maybe it is time to rethink this kind of life style.
2
Brexit was not foisted on the Brits with lies and so on. It was demanded by the Brits because the EU had them in a straight jacket. I strongly favour UK leaving the EU with no deal.
3
"Now there are high-wage, high-skilled jobs and low wage-low skilled jobs"
This idea is part of the problem. The people at the top are not highly-skilled; they are rich. They went to the right schools and know the right people. This is true in the U.S. as well as France (and England).
Who has more skills: Macron or a plumber? Trump or a nurse? A corporate banker or an electrician?
Now try this: if these wealthy people disappeared, would the world fall apart? No, but it would if there were no plumbers or nurses.
The problem is that the wealthy are not only arrogant and greedy, they are also utterly useless to society. That's why the French are in the streets. We should be too.
256
@Elsie You diagnose the problem perfectly. Our system of assigning value to the wrong people is hopelessly inverted. Professional athletes make millions while school teachers educating our children, (our future) strugle to get by. People who write code for diversions like FB, Twitter and electronic games will be utterly useless after the next great war (and there will be one, we are not at the end of history) while those who make a living with their hands will be highly prized.
13
you set up straw men. nurses, plumbers and electricians are not unskilled workers
10
@Elsie
No one leaves high school and immediately becomes a nurse, a plumber, or an electrician. Those are all skilled jobs requiring extensive training. The jobs that have disappeared are unionized manufacturing, unionized retail, unionized mining, farming. They have been replaced by increased mechanization, sent over seas, or have been replaced by minimum wage versions. The jobs that once supported entire families while requiring little or no training are gone and are not coming back.
The gilets jaunes and the rural state Trump voters are struggling with the same problem, the loss of middle income jobs while the professional and managerial classes, as well as the true elites, continue to receive larger and larger pieces of the pie. They have stagnated, longing for the mid-20th century, while the upper income sector has moved into the 21st.
8
Isn't the principal problem, as you mention, the dramatic influx of people from North Africa and many other nations into Europe. "Public housing in Paris today is dominated by immigrants." European democracies, far closer to socialism than America, simply cannot handle the masses of new residents competing for jobs and benefits. I am a very liberal Democrat, however, I am convinced that open borders lead to chaos. Give aid, not sanctuary. Send food, clothing, water and medical supplies, but don't accept all refugees. Europe and America needs to learn this lesson.
104
@Disillusioned There is no common immigration lesson between Europe and America.
Hispanic people have always integrated well, nearly 1/3 of the population here in Chicago identifies as such and we all get along great.
Immigrants from the Middle East and Islamic Africa on the other hand are a lot harder to integrate into Western countries, especially when they arrive in large numbers. Most of them tend to strictly stick to their own culture and keep to their own, even after three generations.
The Republican narrative of projecting the EU's immigration problems onto the Hispanic refugees seeking a new home in the US is one big fear mongering lie.
17
@Liz
I guess you can see that from NJ
2
@Disillusioned It's almost as if a country can't magically produce a million new jobs because immigrants come in. Strange
6
Friedman as usual obfuscates the situation. The wealthy are preying on everyone else and in-effect colonizing the rest of the population via globalization, tech, and the "free" markets he loves so much.
That population doesn't like being colonized. They are impoverished as their produce goes to feed the wealthy, who produce only money & gadgets, not food, and abandon the rest as they party on.
Surprise!
3
Absolutely true but then add the smug sanctimony of the protected political class and their fervent promotion of free human and economic migration no matter what it costs those whose best interests they were supposed to protect and the dismissal of any criticism or protest as 'racist' or 'xenophobic'.
None of this just happened. The leaders of the U.S and the E.U made conscious, calculated, almost coordinated policies in trade and migration that have denigrated average work, average wages and the average middle class lifestyle. And dragged down what was once the steady working class into the working poor competing with foreign migrants.
The ruling political class in the E.U and the U.S deserves the popular challenges they now face from their own arrogance and dereliction of duty.
3
Without the UK, the EU is basically a Carolingian alliance.
Germany will try to keep it alive simply because its very survival as a first world nation depends on that, but the European Dream is over.
Seems like every column Mr. Friedman writes we are told we are at a critical time in history. What would he have done if he was writing during the wars? What he might focus on is how countries that have large military budgets are countries or “empires” in decline.
1
It was much neater when we kept the underclass in their home countries to mine their resources and send them to developed countries.
We've lost control of their home countries and they rabble has looted the armories.
It's not going away anytime soon. Hiding them in ghettos instead of spending the money to integrate them into our societies is failing.
France, like the US is privatizing public institutions that help integrate society. It's one thing to cut spending for the rich, it's another thing to give away public assets to the rich and put future debt on the public.
7
Liberal economic and political policy led the world to unprecedented growth and prosperity. But the newly wealthy forgot where it came from and started pulling it apart. The poor and the rural fall apart and the anger ushers in populous dictators, religious law and the world sinks into violence and misery.
Wake up, the cycle needed be endlessly repeated.
Actually Mr. Friedman, people have been reading about the break up of Europe for over two thousand years. They've been reading about the break up of Europe, even before it was formed. The books of Daniel and Revelation envision scenarios startlingly similar to the current political picture. So yes, the seventy plus years since World War II seem rather long, there are bigger pictures at work.
It is puzzling to read from so many intelligent people - author and commentators - talking so much nonsense facing problems that will become minuscule against the consequences of global warming. Many scientists all over the world and various reputable organizations warn its effects ranging from an exponential increase of temperature, desertification,flooding, fires, hunger, species extinction (already here), social turmoil and refugee waves, to total life extinction by 2026.
All the energy invested in writing this type of analysis as well as commenting should be redirected to curtail carbon and implant alternative energy sources.
But, I am also wasting my time!
Which country will start doing so unilaterally since they can't even sit together to discuss our heralded demise?
All of this is well and good but, as is almost always the case in this sort of commentaries that look only at the symptons, it misses the real cause. It is called overpopulation. Unless world population is brought down to perhaps a quarter of what it is now there is no feasible solution to the terrifying issues that the author describes so well. But description and explanation are not the same.
1
Another interesting Thomas L. article chock full of informative
red-herring information. How much longer will he continue to evade the basic economic theory that has caused and continues to cause the anger that urges people to "yellow vest" ?
From Reagan and Thatcher, on thru Bush, Trump and Macron the the endless and destructive policies of 'tax cuts for the wealthy' which bring on never-ending and painful inequality for a great majority of the world's people must be addressed and truthfully discussed by our leading economists.
Come on, Friedie, how about less fancy articles and more critical analysis of economic policies that are hellbent on destroying whole societies.
3
Here are some of your statements vs. the US realities.
1) The US and Europe are "being shaken today by rural and beyond-the-suburbs insurgencies".
But, Ottumwa IA, Fort Wayne IN, Kansas City KS, Springfield IL, and dozens of others are not rural or exurbs.
2) The Red States "have not generally benefited from the surges in globalization."
Here, globalization sounds like it's a warm fuzzy, but sadly, it didn't hug the Red States. Actually, globalization is a savage beast which devastated our Midwestern industrial heartland.
The Red States didn't miss out on a good thing. They were given a vicious bad thing by the bipartisan establishment.
3) The white workers need to do like the city people, who "have mastered the nonroutine skills required for a high-wage job today."
But, are there any fancy skills to master to get a high-wage job in Erie, Fort Wayne, or Ottumwa?
Supposed computer illiteracy in the Red States isn't the cause of economic despair. The cause is the shipping of Midwestern jobs to, for example, China.
4) "[R]obotics and artificial intelligence and outsourcing and Chinese imports have wiped out a lot of middle-skilled routine white-collar and blue-collar work."
Chinese imports didn't just start, spontaneously, to rise.
There is some Original Sin here. Specifically: the policies of the Democratic and Republican administrations, from the late 1970s on. Knowing the consequences, they shifted production from the heartland to China, Mexico, etc.
2
Friedman routinely advocates, as here, “free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas.” Does it bother no one that when one country attracts talent and ideas from another, the result, as far as the countries themselves are concerned, is a zero sum? Our gain is the exporting country’s loss.
Again, he quotes an economist’s characterization of the disadvantaged vis-à-vis the advantaged social classes in France as “the beer drinkers and the wine drinkers.” Maybe my own impression of these things is 50 years out-of-date, but my own recollection is that the social implication of the habitual consumption of these two beverages in France is the reverse of what it is in the United States.
If France is pivotal, Europe's in big trouble, the pompous Macron showed his weakness, the French will seize on that, he should resign, someone with a backbone is needed. A person with backbone is just across the channel, Theresa May, dealt a bad hand by David Cameron,she soldiers on, surrounded by back stabbers like the flaky Boris Johnson. There is another with guts, Angela Merkel, but she's about to leave the scene because she governed with her heart on the refugee crisis, a political mistake that has not been forgiven, Alas, Europe is indeed, in big trouble.
35
@i's the boy - One wonders what is your assessment of Canada's leadership and socio/economic state? Europe and America share many things in common, but great leadership is not one of them. Though you may disrespect Macron, he displays much more ability to govern than the impostor currently installed at Pennsylvania Avenue. What America and Europe share, quite obviously, is middle class anxiety over the widening gap between rich and poor, a cynical view of government, a paranoiac view of immigration, an incoherent and seething anger at the realities of 21st century life, and an absurd desire to tear it all apart...to burn it down. These are not the traits of highly evolved creatures. I imagine even dear Canada is not immune to the noise in the machine that grows more distressing each day.
3
I've been discussing and educating myself about the Creation of the EU .After painstaking eval the EU IDEA was just a concept created by the money changers who basically took over the economies of all this countries for no real assets in exchange just a non economically historical paper called The Euro . They had the audacity of saying it had more value than the historical dollar ,RMB etc . This was a joke /pyramid scheme line no other. The Money changers are still in Monte Carlo doing their thing.
1
The malaise of Growth focused Western economic development model is the creation of the twentieth century macro economists who only works with numbers. In mathematics, numbers were the dancing lyrics of poetry and natures way to express the subtle forces through simplicity. The modern science, lost that touch, and made the numbers as dry and meaning less measurements like GDP, growth rate, PE Ratio - the life experience of individual citizens are not related to these fantasies. Over the last 50 years, we created a class of elites, whose world is totally disconnected from reality and the way they talk seems the real world is nothing more than a computer simulation. Humans are emotional people and experience of life matters. These events are good outcome of human experience and leaders will come out who will understand these emotions. The fear is they may be like Trump and destroy the elites Party.
@KB - May I say, it boggles the mind to hear someone say that Mr. Trump possesses even a shred of compassion, understanding, or caring about the "emotional experience" of people, or that he knows anything about life outside the mathematics of The Deal. To consider your president and his ilk as anything other than elite is perplexing. Have you ever seen photos of his residence at Trump Tower?! He fantasizes every day about being Emperor of The World. Where's your filter?
As much as everyone wants to deny it, because it is viewed as undemocratic, you can't escape the reality of the Bell Curve. The real wealth drivers which lead to upward mobility are primarily in the technologically driven areas of science, medicine and engineering. Area's which are outstripping the majority's, which includes me, ability to cognitively keep up. Unless you have the entrepreneurial savvy to feed off of those developments you have a limited future. Unless of course, those developments create a life of leisure for all while supplying all our needs. Frankly, our culture has become so bifurcated and insipid that it has gone down the toilet. Taxing the rich and improving our woefully inadequate educational system, particularly in rural areas, will hardly help unless you are willing to spend Saturday nights in the school library.
1
A lot of rhetoric trying to convince the reader that post-World War II prosperity was something abnormal ( "high wages for medium skills") and that the current situation ("high wages for high skills") is somehow natural. It's really just the result of power grabs by people like Trump, and company CEOs paying themselves money that they did nothing to earn.
5
While there several points in the article I would argue with, there are several themes are valid. Putting personalities aside, political bodies have become too "centrist" and too powerful. This is true, be it Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, London and above them Brussels and Washington. Paris in particular has in France had an us v the rest of France. The more that power gets concentrated in these bubbles the less in touch they are in touch with real people and their day to day concerns. In this media age, social and otherwise, non bubble people see what is going on and resentment builds. This is especially true in the EU where unelected/unaccountable bureaucrats enrich themselves nicely in their Brussels EU bubble. The result is Brexit, growing resistance in Italy, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and now even Germany itself. In the US, Trump has been the beneficiary of the same resentment /disillusion with Washington. Back in France, Macron worsens the situation by shifting ever more to a EU Federalist position, which will not go down well anywhere outside Brussels. Macron is about 30 years out of time and a bad politician too boot! The EU, with no real political democratic foundation and faltering economies needs to cut itself back and find a way to become relevant . So far it refuses to reform itself and find a role and a future.
4
I have admired Mr Friedman's musing over the years but this is a case of not listening.
It's not economic suicide by GB, it's the people of GB telling its leaders their policies don't work for them. Think about how drastic it is for a public to take on economic stress to stop social policies. France is in the same situation. So is Belgium and Italy. Listen to the people not the knucklehead leaders who are not listening to the people.
Its not up to France to hold the EU together, its the people of Europe's choice to engage the EU not the ruling elites. All the citizens of all these countries aren't wrong.
7
Let us translate the critical paragraph in this piece and see if we can figure out why Macron did wrong:
"Macron pushed through four vital structural fixes that fostered growth: pro-investment tax reforms"
In other words, he gave more money to rich people and corporations.
"reduced pensions for the bloated railway union, relaxed labor rules to make it easier to fire and hire workers"
In other words, he reduced union workers' power.
"And big new public investments in skills and education for the most disadvantaged."
He spent more on education.
He also raised fuel taxes, which is always regressive.
The problem for Macron is no one believes "pro-investment" policies will work for them. Why should anyone? Neo-liberals have pushed this line forever, and globally median wages have stagnated for 40 years.
There then follows the usual Freidman gibberish about "nimble cities".
The simple truth is we really don't know how to create growth that benefits everyone. Globalization makes expansion of the welfare state problematic. Yet that very expansion seems like the only way we can make sure everyone benefits from economic growth.
10
What concerns me the most is humans are just not built for flexibility. We as a species are prone towards routines and predictability. I was fortunate to be born in an era where almost every part of my life---from a career, wife, children, housing, etc.---were predictable---not saying there were no challenges, but, with a stable career, salary, and homelife---manageable. I do not see that same scenario being played out with my children. Yes, they are doing well, but they are looking over their shoulders constantly in careers that pay well, but in the words of my both my son and daughter could vanish overnight. Clearly, our political class and political leaders are not up to the challenges this very new economic reality is throwing at them---either they look too far into the past or too far into the future for guidance. I know this metaphor is a tired one...but, we really need a leadership class that can both step out of the box while at the same time appearing to stay in the box.
2
When the EU allowed the Eastern European countries to enter the Union, it was the beginning of the end. I doubt it could survive without France.
The path to world stability is clear: rich countries must invest heavily in the economies of poor countries in order to stem the inevitable wave of destitute and desperate people. Internally, they must find a solution for the workers who are being replaced by technology or cheap imports. Corporations cannot continue to export jobs and expect people in their home countries. living on the margins, to buy their imported products for ever. Can you imagine what 5 billions spent to help the economies of Central America could mean to them. A wall may hinder their entrance into the US, but it doesn't keep them from trying. A better economy and jobs might do that.
3
What took Thomas Friedman so long to notice the malaise in France and other Western societies? He was interviewed on CNBC on the same topic and he seemed spooked by the future.
The time is not for our leaders or aspiring leaders to call people names such as haters or deplorables, but to listen to all people and try to come up with long term solutions.
How could Macron strengthen the EU when he cannot even govern his own country? A month ago he was giving lessons to world leaders in French and in English. Today the man who, according to many New York Times readers, represented the intelligent choice is polling at half the percentage points of Trump.
7
The gilets and jaunes are tribes with similar views - beer in UK except the vin rouge you get in the French cheapish supermarket - like the poujadists on the 1950s, or the1960s anti-EU brigade in demonstrations in boats in the Thames. You can understand the ungrateful who don't like immigration and globalization. Perhaps that whether people in Britain will happy in Britain in ten years ago - or whether in France they like more Macron. The disastrous crises throughout in Europe political parties have morphed into vague movements about so-called 'populism' that political scientists describe a bit feeble. It's quite easy to talk these 'people' but Macron cannot, as a journalist he is a 'drageur des vieux' - a forty who sits around the older who enjoys his wisdom. I hope that there are intelligent youngish (unlike in Britain with politicians such as the neo-Leninist and the florid Tories from BBC sitcoms) and people in Europe and in the US, and clever localism will create decent places. Latvia or Denmark isn't so good, or even London and Edinburgh or Toulouse or my family came in Le Havre. Brussels in schadefreude isn't appalling. The post depressing aspect is in the EU is rules-keeping. I can understand that contracts are useful. But they destroyed Greece - and perhaps Britain. Alas, there is no real democracy in Brussels. I could see this when I made films about the E.U. Will they survive? Or will we?
@Nick Fraser
I wonder, if Marine Le Pen's presidency would have unleashed the same amount of dissatisfaction.
@Nick Fraser:Maybe you have interesting points to make, informative, but it all sounds like a mish-mash. GB began to go downhill when political class, led by Heath, made decision half century ago to let in 50,000 immigrants a year, w/o so much a a by your leave from the voters, referendum. Only politician to protest unfairness to citizenry was Enoch Powell and his "Rivers of Blood "speech was an "avertissement,"but unheeded. Old Blighty has been on a downward slope ever since! Brexit was an attempt to reverse the trend. Ordinary folks have no reason to trust any government in Whitehall. GB is 1 of the most densely populated in the world, next to Bangla Desh! Re Macron, could you imagine De Gaulle, Big Charlie as he was called by the old Daily News,addressing the folk in a recorded message? Only redeeming feature in EM, a tool of the wealthy, urban bourgeoisie, is that he has a soft spot in his heart for abandoned animals, and his adopted mutt has the run of the Elysee ."C'est quand meme gentil!"Knew former Poujadists in the OAS who gravitated to the self defense group to save French Algeria. Knew them as an interviewer. Good folk, victims of France's growing economic inequality.Reading between the lines, 1 senses that Friedman is an EU supporter, likes Macron ,but his world is theoretical, unlike RC who has toured the small towns of France, now almost ghost towns,and written poignantly about them and the inhabitants!
Friedman conflates the cold war solidarity of the US and Western Europe and the stability it provided with his carte blanche of acceptance of globalization whose main tenet is that corporations should be free to move manufacturing operations to the lowest cost countries in the globe. This process has hugely benefited China while it has impoverished the working classes in the US and Western Europe. The question we have to ask ourselves was it worth it. Does it benefit Western societies to suffer this this type of economic disruption just so its citizens can buy cheap electronics and clothing from third world workers making at subsistence wages? I am a conservative and do not believe in protecting inefficient organizations. On the other hand I don't believe we should destroy our manufacturing base and the working class folk that base has sustained for generations. There has to be a middle way and we have to find it.
8
@john krieg
China and India were the two largest economies in the world until about 1800s. The plundered resources from Americas and slave labor killed their economy. Now that there is no more newly plundered resource and slave labor is no longer passe, the asian giants with large internal market of their own are dictating the terms of global economics. This is the bottomline that no one wants to talk about. As capitalists we know that those with huge market WILL CONTROL the world economics. But we are in denial.
We need to find ways to tax the rich and upgrade our education, healthcare and infrastructure. We need access to ASIAN market because they are 50% of the world market. We can't prosper without them. Meanwhile machines are going to replace manual labor.period. So we need to find ways to pay for a basic life while simultaneously investing in education.
1
@john krieg
That's the rub. Globalization and loss of jobs are destroying Western civilization for the sake of cheaper consumer goods, as the final good. They are destroying Europe right now, and they may eventually destroy the US, sooner or later, once the underclass of Latin America will flow in. The ancient Greek and Roman empires went that route, and could, even if it took a long time,never resist the invasions from Northern tribes. There's no guarantee that something similar won't happen to the West. In this long-term picture lasting over a few more centuries, Western civilization may be doomed, while China and India will survive. Only a religious belief that we are protected by some God's benevolence may delude us into thinking we are immune to eventual destruction. But so did both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and they had even more gods to ensure their protection and survival, and they did survive much longer than modern Europe and modern USA.
Granted, pessimism is not fashionable, but it remains that the European Union is inexorably leading to the destruction of Western countries and ultimately to Western civilization itself.
1
I was in a Poli Sci class 13 years ago where we read THE WORLD IS FLAT where Friedman laid out the technocratic world before us today. I remember saying then that this free-flow outsourcing of jobs was a bad idea. The problem isn't going to go away by conventional means, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. If it ever does. Western Society has been on a steady rise for over 1,000 years now. Perhaps we forgot that empires fall.
Ponder this question what happens when the generation or 2 who was told to run off to college and came home sadeled with debt start running things? What happens when the College loan bubble bursts? Your first New Deal inspired thought is doubtless "The government will fix it." True. What happens when that party is thrown out of power?
Don't think it'll happen? Look at healthcare. And that's something everyone eventually needs. We're in for a mess, and I don't know that there's a way out.
16
Nothing new here, just a reminder, the so called ruling elite, need look in the mirror and ask themselves, as they prospered from so called globalization," maybe they should have included others". Both here more than any place, and of course in Europe. It is beyond comprehension, how the Democratic party abandoned their core constituency. A reality exist, that if Hillary were the slam dunk they thought, none of the current issue's of trade, taxes, immigration etc. would be on the table and Mueller would be working at some Wall Street Law firm. Hard to know where our own economy would be .
3
Beautifully structured sentences filled with lofty words cannot mask the inconvenient truth, which neither Friedman or others like him are willing to admit: that the 'liberal world order' which in reality means a unipolar world led and dominated by the United States has failed and failed miserably.
Now, with China's unstoppable rise as a global superpower on all levels, be it economic, military and political, those outside North America and the EU have an alternative model of governance to look to: authoritarian by nature (one party system), no 'free press', but in return the system provides stability, security and as we could see it in the past 40 years an unmatched rapid rise in living standards to its people.
Hard communism failed; capitalism - especially the American style - failed too. Maybe the Chinese model will prevail.
3
@waldo The Chinese are only succeeding because of their free market moves toward capitalism. The largest increase in billionaires in the world is in China. The reason that there is a burgeoning middle class in China is because of the increasing income and wealth inequality there.
2
As much as I sympathize with your intentions, this sounds like squaring the circle:
“It has to balance the need for economic growth and redistribution, the need to take care of those who have been left behind without burdening future generations, the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas, and the need to prevent people from feeling like strangers in their own homes.“
Anyway if I have some optimism left regarding the EU, it has to do with its irreversibility, at least regarding those countries that share the euro. They are so integrated at so many levels that an “end of Europe” would be simply impossible without immediate and irreparable damage.
That’s why not even hard line populists dare to even think about it. Even today, Salvini & co accepted to comply with EU rules.
3
There are actually enough jobs in existence today. However, the only way to make it work is to enact a global, federated government to deal with global capitalism. The only way to solve this is for a UN-like object to be in control of all trade laws.
Wild capital flow as though there are no laws is what we see today. And on the global scale, there are no laws, only opportunities. The larger and wealthier you are, the faster and with greater ease can you bypass the particular laws of a particular country. Or even hedge one country against another.
With many, or is it most, countries having smaller GDP than Apple's balance sheets, how are these lost locations to compete?
The only answer is global-nationalization-federation. If the wealthy want to play a game, then some cadre of the wealthy must step up and be public about their support for a federated global government.
At the local level, since the above simply won't happen without an existential crisis of the first order (Ross Ice Shelf collapsing?) jobs could be created whose sole purpose is to beautify and clean every location, and create space for wildlife. But that won't happen either.
So, we'll just have to wait for whatever Malthusian crisis to come along, that will treat humanity equally to force change.
9
@Curiosity Jason A centralized world government is the last thing that we need. We already see what happens when centralized governments try a one size fits all approach over disparate populations.
1
An excellent analysis that still verifies that this may not much be the end of Europe, as much as the end of Europe as we have known it.
I certainly think that way when looking at Germany, which has changed into something barely recognizable in the space of only a few years.
Things were already on edge after the Wall fell and it became readily apparent to all of us that it would take decades for the country to truly unite again, but there was the hope that it could in spite of the odds.
However the reality was the wealth of the capitalist West and the socialist East would never merge beyond a certain point due to much the same forces of technology, globalization and immigration that Mr. Friedman mentions in this article.
The class divisions widened. The working-class faltered, while a new middle-class and upper-class prospered.
And as a result, we now have a resurgent wave of right-wing activity that has managed to find footing in the Bundestag, and the imminent departure of a conservative centrist Chancellor who held things together, while ultimately helping things to fall apart.
Mr. Macron now faces something similar.
He may have temporarily dodged the same fate by defeating Marine Le Pen in the last election, but as the recent demonstrations in France and changes across Europe indicate, time is not on his side.
It's also not on ours.
3
@N. Smith What "barely recognizable" Germany are you talking about? Most certainly not the Germany I live in.
@Mark B
If you didn't live in Germany while it was still divided into East and West, it's hardly surprising you miss my point.
@N. Smith Well, I acutally did.
As usual, the elite miss what is happening and prescribe more of the same as a cure. The problem is bureaucratic, high tax, high regulatory states thwart capitalism and produce sclerotic economies with no opportunities for the working and middle class. Robotics, unchecked immigration and social change add fuel to the fire. The solution isn’t globalism or nationalism, but a balance of the two and a complete overall of the liberal world order, both it’s form and leadership, such the governments become responsive to the needs of their citizens.
3
@Mark V, if history has shown one thing then that nationalism, no matter what form, is not only not the answer but also the root cause for the darkes t times in human history.
Also, taxation itself isn't the problem, which is more one of distribution of tax load. The wealthy always get off lightly while the peasants pay for everything.
Also, globalization can (and often does) lift all boats, but only so if the displaced workers in one country are re-educated so that they can do better-paying jobs instead. The problem is that, with government support, companies were allowed to just pocket the cost savings and leave the displaced workers to their own.
Not sure why you mention regulation, which has nothing to do with the Yellow Vests and their complaints, and which has made living in Europe much more secure and comfortable than in low-regulation countries like the US, which can't even provide basic health care for its citizens.
11
@Wurzelsepp You assume that being taken care of is the ultimate goal of everyone. I pay dearly for my healthcare but I wouldn’t prefer to have it provided for me. I and many others prefer to maintain our freedom and self determination.
@Mark V
In the past few decades capitalism has been corrupted by ideologues who claim that corporations owe nothing to the societies that made their wealth possible. The result is "high regulatory states" to protect the societies from their greed.
There obviously are many complex factors contributing to the rise of discontent and right wing nationalism in Europe and the United States. At risk of oversimplifying, however, it seems to me that the match that lit the fire was the influx of too many immigrants in both the US and Western Europe. In Europe this was not only Muslim and black African immigrants from outside, but internal immigrants from Eastern Europe as well. Both systems were capable of absorbing SOME immigrants without causing a reaction, the United States more than Europe perhaps, but the influx exceeded this capacity. I concede, perhaps the tinder was already so primed by other socio-economic changes that anything could have sparked it.
Throughout history, however, the mass migration of people has been a powerful, at times disruptive force. And basically unstoppable.
The author is correct that the times call for incredibly deft leadership and careful balancing of interests to keep the system from spinning into chaos. We need more redistributive policies and sharing of the gains from globalization and technology, better education, more power to workers, effective measures to address climate change, better management of immigration, etc. etc. It is a heavy lift.
I can only say that in the United States, we don't currently have the leadership capable of doing any of it.
15
@Thomas As long as people see right wing nationalism as the lone problem and left wing populism as the lone solution, nothing will change. People are completely missing the forest for the trees. Europe is stumbling in the wake of its own failures. Americans want to copy this recipe for disaster.
1
@Thomas, the match that "lit the fire" wasn't immigrants, in fact immigration isn't even a topic for the Yellow Vests. The problems are policies which favor the wealthy while off-loading costs to the poorest of society.
5
@Thomas
"the influx exceeded this capacity."
What capacity? I haven't seen any economic problems resulting from immigration. I've seen a lot of problems resulting from corporations absorbing their nations' wealth and then blaming it on immigrants.
It looks like European nations want to restore the continent to its former state: well-defined borders, protection of each country's language and culture, etc.
With that, it is still possible to maintain good inter-country relationships, travel and commerce.
Europe is not the kind of continent, where a homogenous mix of people can and will function.
5
@Andrew It's hard to say whether it's possible to maintain good relations between European countries if they dissociate from one another. We know the pre-EU arrangement didn't work quite so well and we don't know if things have changed enough in the past 70 years to try that arrangement again with success. My guess is that it wouldn't be easy or smooth, and without the countries together in a political union to counterbalance larger states you risk one turning into a regional hegemon (not necessarily benevolent and quite possibly hostile) with no checks and the whole spectrum of bad things that can happen then.
But it also could work. Who knows? It seems Europe in general is plagued by inter-country hostility either way.
1
Give it time, it will come together, a bit.
The U.S. had their days too, in the 1860s, the Civil War.
And even today some Americans in California and the East Coast are unhappy with the people the states in the center of the nation send to Washington.
But eventually the talk of splitting up dies down, for the most part.
@Andrew, you said
"Europe is not the kind of continent, where a homogenous mix of people can and will function."
The same has been said about the United States of America, and here we are.
It's because its nonsense. Except for Backstabbing Britain, which has always only been in for its own gain (it became only an member of what today is the Eu to rescue itself from its own economic incompetence, just google 'Sick man of Europe'), the EU has worked pretty well for more than fourty years, and while there is a certain resentment in parts of the population, this resentment comes from decisions taken by national governments, and if the EU didn't exist the problems would still be there.
And rest assured. should the EU fall then we will indeed see Europe returning to its former state: individual countries with strict borders, and many of them will be at war with each other.
What a glorious outlook.
Journalists are paid to write, so they write.
But one shouldn't lose too much sleep over their predictions. Bad things might happen, but it will be almost a coincidence if the bad stuff they said would happen turns out to be the bad stuff that happens.
The past always looks better because we always know how generally harmless the past was.
In the present we worry about the future, because we are unsure of the future.
But later, when the future becomes the past, we see how well things went.
But journalists are paid to write, so they write.
7
@David Martin
"because we always know how generally harmless the past was." We need to smile at this light-handed ignorance of the history of the West.
"France, a revolutionary country" as Frachon put it + a gradual build up of extravagant expectations from the overwhelming state inevitably lead up to the disasters we've seen.
From any objective/materialistic point of view the French working poor with free health care, education and a generous safety net have got it infinitely better than the middle classes of most countries on earth.
Explanations based on material well being miss completely the point of the real crisis which is an identity one: today's real world is unforgiving for those that believed that belonging to a given tribe would always mean being on top of some immutable order. Add that to a "revolutionary" culture that abhors incremental "bourgeois" change and you get one term presidents until the inevitable collapse.
3
@Nicolas the French working poor .............have got it infinitely better than the middle classes of most countries on earth.
The French 'working poor ' find it more and more difficult to maintain their cigarette and alcohol consumption - plus the cost of ' la chase ' [ the hunt] has risen.
For decades we knew there were structural problems in the way the EU was created and run. Wealthy corporations and individuals don't want it changed. Citizens of member states who have strong national identities and a desire for a middle class communities demand change. There needs to be a change in the Euro. There needs to changes in migration policy. Individual states need to have the right to regulate commerce. The British are breaking away for good reason. Soon it will be the Greeks, Spanish, Italians and Hungarians.
4
@Mike
But unfortunately nationalists have no solutions. That is why the Yellow jackets are leery about both the left, and right political parties despite hating "middle party Macron". Trump was savvy to identify the discontent in the US but is a problem exploiter not a problem solver. Therefore he convened no task force with balanced political representation to study the problem and report on long term solutions rather than for example falsely trumpeting the return of the coal industry. Macron is much smarter than Trump --I still have confidence that Macron can pull off a genuine rebalancing of his leadership that will preserve his European centric orientation---in order to preserve the EU and save it from nationalists who exploit but do not solve problems. Friedman has art right!
8
@Mike, ignorance is hardly a good reason. The Brits are breaking away because they believed the lies that they were told by the British gutter press and the Leave campaign, which only worked because of the generally low education levels in this country in regards to how the EU works or what it is. Now that reality dawns, they are running around like headless chicken. A truely embarassing display of national incompetence.
Also, EU membership hardly changes people's national identifty, as much as being American doesn't make an Ohioan less of a Buckeye. Also, every Eu country has the same vote in European decissions, no matter how big or small. Also, the vast amount of people in the EU are pro-EU, they feel as European as a Buckeye feels American. And after BREXIT, this pro-EU stance has only increased.
Also, neither the Greeks (who used fraud to become an EU member and is now on a path to recovery), nor the Spanish (who did very well from EU membership), the Italians (a country close to bankrupcy because of its high amount of corruption, with a population where Mussolini is still widely admired), and most certainly not the Hungarians (a poor country vastly benefiting from EU investment, otherwise unable to feed its own people).
Europe fought hard for its freedom and although it lost this battle, it ultimately will win the war, this time around Europe and the rest of the World will be fighting for their freedom in the light.
2
These articles continue to show how politicians around the world are missing the boat. Capitalism can only go so far in creating a balanced human society. Around the globe we have hit that ceiling and now capitalism marches on but Government has lost the ability to balance the system.
Robot work is not as beneficial as human work, so tax it more.
Amazon is not as beneficial as Mom and Pop retail, so tax it more.
Robotic stock trading is not as beneficial as human trading.
Food grown have way around the world is not as beneficial as local food.
Its all about ripple effect.
Use new tax revenue to build a solar based electric fuel system to combat global warming. Jobs and training. Local Local Local.
27
@Chris Spratt
Chris, this all seems fine...as long as I get to be the one who determines what is ‘beneficial’, and what is not! A template for authoritarianism, not liberty!
Globalism is waning and Nationalism is rising and nothing will reverse that trend. There is a very simple reason. The Western Nations cannot continue to accept the excess populations of all the failed states of the world. Their rapid population growth will outpace any efforts made to accelerate immigration. Their reluctance to assimilate will further exacerbate the issues. There is a cruel reality to today's world that many do not want to accept. That reality is there are Billions of people alive today who will die in poverty. Who will never reach those Western Nations no matter who gets elected in 2019 or 2020 or 2024. The appetite of the native populations to continue to see their own financial circumstances spiral down is dwindling rapidly and they will vote out the globalists and vote in the nationalists. This means the EU will cease to exist within ten years. It does not mean that the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed since the end of WW2 will end as Friedman implies. It just means it will stop being diluted to an ever growing population of 3rd world immigrants who did not help to build that bright new world. They will die in it by the billions and those of us in our havens can only watch it happen. Unless those same immigrants decide instead of fleeing to some safe harbor they will tackle their own problems and build their own future. We can help them but so far all we want to do is open our borders to a few of them and close our eyes to the plight of the rest.
19
Who did not help to build that bright new world ? Really ?
Then what exactly is your take on the colonial era when some countries took over others and then exploited their populations and resources to enrich themselves and then picked up and left after the end of the Second World War when they could not defend their murderous policies and were too weak to militarily contain the new Freedom movements without paying back even the debts that they owed those colonised nations ? Some of these colonised countries even paid for the Wars fought in Europe that they had nothing to do with !
The huge transfer of wealth that happened was the key to the power of many Western European nations . And yes the truth is that many countries born of that colonial legacy especially in Africa will never get to the level of decent living for most of its citizens not just because of poor leadership but also because they are still recovering from the wounds of having been colonised and because of a pure lack of resources in this ‘global economy’ we have.
The lack of education of many regarding the colonial era is sad.
2
@GregP
You are making a fundamental bad assumption that it is the west that provides to the rest. You are wrong. The west rose by plundering native american resources, slave labor, plundered resources from the colonies. China and India were the largest economies until 1800s and they were decimated by this plunder from Americas but now they, with the large internal market, are beginning to dictate the world economics commensurate with their market size.
America has stealthily joined the historic Big 2 to make it the Big 3. Europe cannot fight these 3 giants as separate countries. They can only prosper as one Europe. That is the reason behind the Franco-German alliance for EU. A dismanteld Europe will simply make it easy for the 3 giants to play one against the other for their own benefits.
America itself with only 5% of world market has already become smaller than Chinese economy. So the world order is changing to historic normal of Asia controlling the world economics. This is inevitable. We need to be smart and adjust to power sharing arrangement while we have control. If not, we will slowly lose power and be dictated from Asia with their institutions imposing their order.
@Matt
Thank you for talking the brutal truth. The west imagines they rose because of their exceptionalism and intellect. That is a delusional myth. The same west was rotting with internal divisions and religious strife until 1500s before they had access to the sudden flow of resources from Americas. Once they had the native american plunder they used that to strengthen themselves before colonizing others and decimating China and India, who didn't have access to these resources and didn't have the benefits of slave labor either.
1
Ironically, one of the major problems with the EU was the rapid expansion that went from 9 to 28(?) nations all with an all-or-nothing veto power over the High Commission. And since many of those states were Eastern Europe, it was harder for them to integrate both economically and politically. Even the reunification of Germany, while politically to be applauded, it created great distress in that nation, and weakened the economic powerhouse of the Western section. Much of the angst and racism seems to have been based in the East, despite Merkel being an East German herself.
Another major change was, until the fall of the USSR, the EU's purpose and NATO's were totally in sync: a bulwark against the Warsaw Pact. Germany was THE major border nation, now it's Europe's center. On top of it, with Trump shredding our 73 year commitment to ensuring Europe's security, all because "they owe us", never realizing that their security is OUR security and a bargain, Germany is floating the idea of a European-only military. Given Trump's reneging, it makes sense.
And all have played into Russia's game of breaking apart the European and NATO coalition so Putin can expand West and again take over former Russian-owned nations that became "Soviet Republics". The fool in the White House and the Russian cyber destabilization attacks are all making it work.
Do we really want to live in a Putin-led world?
24
Brussels spent more than a decade ignoring the problems with EU rules and the Euro as a currency and wails as if they never saw the backlash coming. But for the force of Mario Draghi, Europe would have seen Greece, Spain, Italy and others exit as well.
The real lie is that Brexit = suicide. Britain isn't going anywhere but up and neither is France or Germany or the rest of Europe. The real lie is that the broken rules system built by attorneys for the fortunes of the fortunate cannot be amended to work for all the people. That's the real lie.
Henry Blodgett has coined the phrase "Better Capitalism". We need that and the democratic corrections espoused by Robert Reich. European rules need a lot of work too.
8
While there are many similarities, America's economic structure differs from that of France in important ways. One important similarity is a tax structure that benefits corporations and the wealthy. A major difference, however, is that France's unions still wield considerable power while America's unions no longer have any real political nor financial influence.
For the US to redress its gross wealth inequality will require a complete redo of its tax codes which, unfortunately, can't be done unless the role of money in our political system is greatly reduced.
13
Paris does have those lovely wide boulevards for a reason... to prevent the placement of revolutionary barricades. When you have an imbalanced system which favors the executive over the legislature coupled with power centralized in a single city, one should expect political instability.
2
Mr Friedman comes across as a shameless defender of the status quo. There are so many things wrong with his point of view I scarcely know where to begin.
As a retired Army officer, I am incredulous that he seems to think it OK that the United States pay for the Europeans collective defense — this has contributed immensely to our own spending problems and add significantly to the size of the military industrial complex in this country
This leads me to my next point, which is that the concept of the European Union was to paper over nationalistic differences, which caused 2 world wars, by promising vast social benefits and a set of bureaucratic/ administrative rules designed to stifle the idea that one country could be more competitive and successful than another.
This concept of liberal democracy works when everyone benefits but by failing to address the basic issues of nationalism, and by ignoring the fact that these countries should be defending themselves, One can reasonably conclude that all liberal democracy represents is a failure to address the root causes of Europe’s problems to begin with
23
@NJ resident
The writer fails to mention the fact that we use Europe as a forward base in support of our Middle East and Africa adventures. Furthermore, that Russia has proven to be no friend, and we need a bulwark against its expansion in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
It is not defense of Europe that has caused our military budget to soar. Defense of Europe is the most successful investment in our security that has been made, with the biggest payoff for the US.
Our defense paradigm is indeed on shaky ground. We are spending too much and getting too little for it. But simplistic solutions like this are not the answer.
10
@NJ resident I totally agree with you about being the “world police“. I would mind a lot less if we were on “world payroll”.
Why would a retired army officer be some sort of expert on how defense expenses should be shared?
1
Macron appears to be governing as a classic neoliberal, thus favoring capital over labor. Hasn't worked anywhere else, and won't work in France. Robert Kuttner, in his excellent "Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?", makes a compelling case that the profound problems we confront across the globe today are the direct and all-too-predictable result of policy choices over the last four decades. Either we learn from our mistakes, or repeat them. Only now the stakes are higher than ever. Given the power of entrenched wealth to control political discourse, I am not optimistic that we citizens of the world can think ourselves out of this.
9
Interesting fact just reported upon on French TV news last night : the backlash and sense of injustice in reaction to energy reform taxes was predicted in a report by Macron’s own appointed ‘public debate’ service LAST SUMMER ... the same service mandated to set up public debate sessions now ... maybe need to actually READ those reports your civil servants produce. There was also a randomly-selected contingent of citizens invited to meet in Paris at the time - Guess Macron didn’t listen to them either.
8
When the powerful rich create government they call democracy, they feel qualified to ignore the people. After all they have created democracy. They just keep telling people, “this is your democracy” and assume that people will accept it, after all they are rich and powerful and therefore right. If the people really want to enjoy a democracy, which is of, by and for them, they must make it themselves. That is the way it is in Europe or in the US.
11
@Me,
Re: “…any attempt at reforming this monstrum of entitlement that generations have become accustomed to is a monumental task”
Weaning workers from corrupt and inefficient structures, is possible. It is also possible to solve the problem of declining rural economies. This was done in the US. It was called the New Deal. The US economy – like all older economies – was 90% agricultural. How did the New Deal “deal" with the problem of unemployed and low paid former farmers? By offering viable (in fact, quite good) alternatives. The opportunities for rural workers in the US (and France) to move to cities, are really not that good, and in many cases, getting worse all the time. Low wages, multiple part time jobs, high rent, long commutes, etc. – all symptoms of insufficient aggregate demand, excessive inequality, and low wages.
Re: “The inequality in paychecks has a different root and good luck trying to 'fix' that.” YES.
The *real* problem. Putting first world workers in direct competition with low wage workers in other nations - without somehow finding a means of replacing the lost aggregate demand in each national economy, and keeping those wages at reasonable levels, is the problem. That is the problem which must be addressed, because just taking someone's means of support without a viable alternative, is not an acceptable option.
And cutting taxes on the rich, while raising them on workers, and while cutting wages, are exactly the opposite of needed policy.
21
Mr. Friedman’s solution is no solution at all.
If decentralization is the answer then why push for the Superstate called the E.U. with its super currency the Euro that prevents trade value adjustments between the cities and city-regions within Europe?
Similarly why push for virtually all decisions in the US to be made by the Federal bureaucracy rather than taking advantage of the decentralized powers of State governments?
And in a decentralized system, who stands in opposition to the monopoly and monopsony powers of the global Supercorporations, like Apple, Google, Samsung, and the Chinese Communist Party (which is nothing other than the most powerful centralized management in the world)?
10
@Frank So we should have stuck with the ideal 18th Century 'Articles of Confederation' wherein each former colony was (essentially) it's own country? Or perhaps have let the Confederacy go it's own way? (Still not too late for that). We'd all be speaking German or Japanese by now, of course.
@Unconvinced You should pose your question to Tom Friedman. I am pretty happy with the balance struck by the U.S. Constitution, As Amended. It was Mr. Friedman who suggested decentralization as a cure.
Analysts such as Mr. Friedman miss a key point: the evolution of all systems towards increased complexity and the lack of concepts and tools to manage the latter. Liberal democracies must evolve and adapt to enhanced complexity (from molecular biology to social sciences) making it workable.
2
@Esteban
Good luck adapting to complexity. Part of the reason for the success of the nationalists is that they simplify decision-making for the low-information voter: "Believe in Me" is very simple to understand.
The EU does not have the power to dictate social legislation in the member states, such as minimum wages, size of unemployment benefits and pensions. Nor can the EU legislate on tax policy within the member states. So there is really only so much that the EU can do to curb this frustration that the gilets jaunes represent. What is happening in France is interesting, though - the yellow vest phenomenon seems to be spreading to other countries, and rather than being written off mob rioting, it may point a way forward to a more inclusive kind of democracy where politicians will actually listen to larger portions of the populace and realize that we all have a right to be here - not just the smooth operators of globalization. Probably naïve, but one could hope.
17
In Europe capitalism is less aggressive than in the US. We have stronger redistribution mechanisms. We also have a stronger opposition to the side effects. We will have the flexibility to adapt. We can also look at the US blueprint as to what the future brings if we don't.
I would more worry about the end of the Democracy in the United States. As a result of extreme capitalism power is no longer with the people.
15
Well said. Now solve the race and religion problems.
@Woodman
Stop electing the GOP HR,Senators and presidents who simply raise the bogeyman immigrant issue to hide the tax cuts for the rich and unquestioned $$$ to military that is causing the income inequality, lack of resources for education, healthcare and infrastructure.
Its the end of civilization as we know it. The rich get richer while 'we the people' struggle to put bread on the table and educate our kids.
13
It's really not so difficult to figure out that the road to social tranquility is paved with a guarantee of adequate food, clothing, shelter. Each of these protester's statements is a reflection of that fact. High minded commentary about "nimble cities" completely misses the point.
15
@SpyvsSpy Oh, I think he just couldn't resist the chance to coin a fashionable phrase. Surely he knows about Roosevelt's Four Freedoms - don't you suppose?
I read this and it's in line with lots of things that I think now that I'm 70 with cancer. All my life, looking back at it, we've been LIED to. Population control is a must (is there any lack of people anywhere?), greed of the "captains of industry - otherwise known as Masters of the Universe - is and always was out of control. Resources are NOT infinite. Folks are just waking up to that. Yes, this is clearly a revolutionary time. The young will lead it forward. Macron and trumpf and others of their ilk have LIED to their respective bases who wanted to hear comforting things. It is NOT about the state taking care of us. It is perhaps about having a better world in many regards and doing the right thing for future generations. Neither the white man, nor the U.S. nor the E.U. has a monopoly on putting things back to the way they were. Now I think I'll go have another coffee...
7
After fifty years of American prosperity our country stopped working, ran out of oil, got lazy, didn’t really care about it’s place in the world and now grunt work is gone. Drugs and leisure are accepted as normal.i had to learn new skills to finish my life, I became a casino dealer. It’s amazing how our citizens want to throw away their money.
Countries can't be reduced to one or two big city. France is not Paris, Britain is not London. All industrial nations suffer from a reinforcing rural-urban disparity. This is also a crisis of a transformation, that already started after the war with the industrialisation and subsequent deindustrialisation of whole regions. Coal is coming, coal is going, steel is coming steel is going. Only metropolitan areas with big service industries are immune to the misery of long term transformations.
We should have seen this coming decades ago. It tells a lot of our business model, when we think, that a 'basket of deplorables' is just a collateral damage of a liberal world order of a spaced out intellectual elite. If this breaks Europe, than europe deserves it. If populists take over, i blame the intellectual circles for their arrogance. People who are more concerned about the well-being of refugees than the prospects of their own citizen. Politicians who are uncomfortable beyond their big cities. And i think i will see a lot more opinion-writers that are just starting to realize, that their brave new world is deeply flawed.
28
@Mathias Weitz Hmm, seems like it was conservative policy that railed against industrial policy, that undercut worker protections and against any kind of redistribution whether that was supporting good public education, SSI, health care for everyone, against even government itself ... all that is what sank the middle class but it was the rural population who did and do support exactly their executioners.
Suddenly, this is all the fault of liberal city dwellers who kept up their educational support and moved up the ladder. It is somehow all their fault for the ruinous policies that they always opposed.
Somehow
12
@BarryG
Not sure where you've been for the last 40 years but it sure wasn't in Blue Collar or Rural USA. Liberals (Dems) abandoned blue collar workers and farmers back in the 1970s. Now many sit up in their big cities and call people who do not live in coastal huge cities deplorables, uneducated, and against "them". But again, this isn't new. The contempt NYC, SFO, and LA has had for "middle America" has been well known for all of my 54 years.
You wrongly try to make this a conservative vs liberal thing. This is a rich vs everyone else thing. Oh, and if you wish to compare education rates and degree obtainment, us "rural" people are far ahead of the city dwellers. You cannot be stupid and farm, many have BS degrees or higher, nor can factory workers get by with just a high school diploma.
Don't want to believe Dems were just as quick to wipe out middle class USA, check the congressional record. It will show who voted for "free trade" bills that ruined the Midwest.
1
@BarryG
Aint it funny that all the nations with their different approaches face similar problems ?
France with the Gilets jaunes, Britain with Brexit, America with Trump. Populists all over europe ? And you think people are just stupid and are acting against their own interests ?
Put it in the word of Marie Antoinette: If they have no bread, let them eat cake. What is the point of a workers protection if you don't get any jobs. What kind of pride is left of you when you get pushed around like an hobo by people, who have their fingers in the cake. If you have to leave the cottage you family for the promise of a big city, just to find yourself at the bottom of the social ladder. Doesn't that remind you of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" ?
There is a logic in what people do. Just because we don't like this logic doesn't make this logic wrong, or even go away. I agree overall our nations would be better of with a liberal world order. But i disagree we should do whatever it takes to get there.
Yes i blame the city dwellers. Maybe they are out of touch of how deep the humiliation runs already. Maybe they are sending out the wrong signals.
At least we should acknowledge that the city dwellers can and should change something, instead of taking the wrath of the dust-bowl-dwellers as negligible nuisance.
So is Friedman advocating that corporations continue to take over the world — like McKinsey (see shocking article here about that global force)? Corporations, like Amazon, Apple and Google have the power to organize smart-cities, not governments anymore. And shadow corps like McKinsey are creating economic systems that totally circumvent democracy, no less any media coverage. Why am I just now hearing about McKinsey? There are others, to be sure.
13
I think France is not so important as this article suggest. Pivotal is Germany and more widely speaking - German economic area, which roughly goes within the former Holy Roman empire areas.... Germany, Czech rep., Austria, Slovakia, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Poland, Hungary. If this historical circle and core of modern Europe's economy fall = Europe will fall. Times of France or UK being pivotal (economically) are over many decades..... Maybe I am biased as I come from central Europe, but I think this German led central european economic area (which always existed even in history when Germany was not centralized state) is the most imporant point and always was in the faith of the whole Europe....
7
@Petr, as a Central European I would have expected that you are aware that that every EU member state, including Czechia, has the same vote when it comes to European issues, no matter how small or large that country is. Germany has the same vote as Luxembourg, Czechia, or any other EU nation, not more not less. Which means it should be obvious why the idea that Germany would in some way "lead" the EU or being the only member country that can make decisions is idiotic at best.
Looks like it's time to brush up your knowledge about EU member states or how the EU works.
Rarely have I read a more succinct summary of the state of Europe - congratulations. I passionately hope France will work through its current crisis, and as much as I resent the stubborn refusal of conservative Britain to recognise Great Britain is not an empire any more - should have seen that truth after the Suez Crisis in 1956 at the latest but could have seen it much earlier - and would enjoy seeing the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage and their conservative cronies be held accountable for their treachery, I sincerely hope that Great Britain will decide to hold another referendum and see the narrow outcome of the initial one, the result of misinformation, comprehensively overturned. England is not France and no heads will roll, the Conservatives will not be the ones that will even suffer hardship, which they will simply explain by references to “social Darwinism”, and as for who is to blame for the misery, well, there will be time-honoured German-bashing. Europe must not fall apart! There are enormous challenges heading our way, no matter where we live on this globe, on many fronts, and they are best tackled by largest feasible political units. Single European nations, no matter how strong they may seem, will be fighting losing battles.
3
The cause is simple: disparity of wealth; therefore, the solution is simple: redistribute the wealth.
28
@James Siegel
I'd like to see you write a book about that simplicity, James.
"If Macron fails, it will be the end of Europe." No it won't be. It will be the end of the EU (or of the EU as presently constituted), which is a good thing as it was always completely a top-down project, unconcerned about citizens of various countries who were left out of its neoliberal deal, and actually believed that it and its apparatchiks could abolish the various European nation-states. The nations of Europe will continue to exist and will find a better way to live than the EU fantasy/nightmare they now find themselves in.
25
@Lotzapappa Yes. "If Macron fails, it will be the end of Macron." Fixed it.
@Lotzapappa Hear, hear!!!
@Lotzapappa
"a top-down project, unconcerned about citizens of various countries" What do you mean? less labor protections? breaking treaties you dislike? less european integration? less mobility? fewer foreigners? What appratchicks? like Brusels bureocrats, or london bureocrats or council bureocrats. The further they are the easier to hate them. There is a european parliament by the way, all elected by european voters, if you vote and if you complain to them.
And... The era of "never ending" growth is ending. The economy cannot grow forever in a finite world.
26
As a first step in addressing the rising inequality in the U.S. and Europe I suggest that the two central banks bring the decade of cheap money and trickle down economic philosophy and policy to a rapid close. The primary and virtually only beneficiaries of the extreme monetization of virtually everything, a prime example being higher education, have been the wealthy and those who are getting wealthy through the bloated financial services industry. There is virtually no reliable and no non-dogma driven evidence that zero-based interest rates and quantitative easing have benefitted any productive segments of the economy rather than the out-sized and non-productive benefits accruing to an extreme rent-seeking and greed-driven financial sector.
11
Europe is a continent. There is no nation called "Europe" the same as there is no nation called "Asia" or "Africa". It's not hard to see why Poles, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, French and Irish may not see eye-to-eye on important political, social, and economic issues. EU prosperity covered up the inherent conflicts for a while but now that the affluence is receding, major fault lines are becoming apparent again. I'm not even sure a country as large and diverse as the United States will exist in fifty years given the rifts we see developing.
9
@Earl W. Diversity has proved to be very divisive.
1
@Earl W. You are so right Earl. The mighty USA , Canada, Australia and the South American countries that were created that Europe could be what it is will come to an end. When they have to return what they stole, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Friedman like many NYT commentators simply can not understand the anger. But it would help if they paid attention to what has really happened and not what they imagine. “high-wage, middle-skilled jobs are vanishing” no they are not, they are just being moved to the factories and offices of Asia, to inflate short term profits. As for the EU, it has long been taken over by and for a tool of the financial Elite. Don’t confuse the EU with progressive European ideals.
30
"...leaving a considerable cohort of people with stagnant incomes and burning resentments at the globalized city slickers who they think look down at them…"
Of course, this is the key point in all the palaver, the economic and cultural resentment that fuels the low-information insurrection on both sides of the Atlantic.
The urban elites here and there don’t do themselves any favors, or help the situation by their openly dismissive, often contemptuous attitude toward their struggling compatriots.
The elites, having more advantages, should take the lead in building bridges between the classes. But no, they’re are racists, don’t you know?
16
@Ron Cohen
"But no, they’re are racists, don’t you know?"
Some certainly are. But do they all have orange hair? Or are some 'seemingly elite' actually doing what you suggest, Ron? It takes two to tangle; but the good news is that it also takes two to tango.
How does the statement, "In this world, highly centralized countries will fare much worse than decentralized ones" apply to China?
10
@JayKaye China is on the verge of finding out. The growth has slowed and second generation-from-the-the-peasant-countryside urban populations won't be content with low-paying factory jobs. The communist center of power will be be less and less able to control information. We may see the Chinese equal to yellow vests soon.
5
@Ralph Averill. It is many many years since Friedman was making predictions about the growth of a middle class in China. Friedman was wrong on all counts just as his book Understanding Globalisation was a fundamental misunderstanding about Political Economy.
12
Great article, but ..
"It has to balance the need for economic growth and redistribution, the need to take care of those who have been left behind without burdening future generations, the need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas, and the need to prevent people from feeling like strangers in their own homes."
... left out another 'has to': the leadership needed in the US, Britain and Europe has ALSO to balance real concern for avoiding degradation of the environment with real concern for both fairer and more 'economically effective' taxation. Regenerative economics anyone?
3
To me this is such a brilliant article and a fair and beautifully written sum-up of forces at play and what it's doing to societal and economic structures. One other major force that should be mentioned is the underlying core problem of rampant population growth that is putting pressure on just the capacity of society to respond to the problems facing us and for some cultures and national societies fear a disintegration of their identity. Hence, a Donald Trump and others. But there's also balancing forces and I don't discount the benefit side of technological and scientific advancement to continue to create both problems and solutions. All the areas discussed in the article are basically describing the different ways and alignments that individual nations are choosing to attempt to stop these trends. Unfortunately for many, as described are choosing routes that just will make everything worse. It would be a big help, if we can elect anyone but Trump, who after all, is sort of a personification of those forces described by Mr. Friedman, but not really the cause of them.
4
You are right about Britain committing suicide with Brexit. If I understand the proposed deal correctly, Northern Ireland will remain within a European customs union for all products and the rest of the United Kingdom will remain within it for most but not all products, but without having a voice in determining standards. Most people in Scotland wanted to remain in the European Union. Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a new country called the United Kingdom of England and Wales.
6
This an excellent article about the state of the crisis looming. Yet the assessment of France is not totally accurate. Since the late 60s', France has paid a heavy price for De Gaulle's arrogance toward the US and the USD. With the socialists arriving in power in 1981, France demise accelerated with taxes levels and public sector closer to the Soviet Union or North Korea than any other Western democracies. A majority of French voted against the Maastricht treaty and yet Mr. Sarkozy succeeded to circumvent the vote. Mr. Macron election was also largely based on the Fillon demise. The future of France lies in reducing public spending, lowering taxes, decentralizing to local and regional level and moving toward a more democratic Europe representing the people and not an elite like Mr. Moisi speaking frequently on French TV in the name of the people. Unfortunately French history shows that nothing can change without violence in France and I am not referring only to 1789. The French elite is very skillful blocking changes and has already positioned itself abroad with the help of globalization. I am a French from Brittany that lives 25 years in Hong Kong and work in the financial industry. I have seen the slow decline of my country on the back of leftist policies and the greed of the French elite and yet the true questions have not even started to be asked in France.
9
Simply a great op-ed piece, and an excellent primer as to understanding what is actually happening in the E.U., today. It’s cold comfort to know that we in the US are not alone, and that the roots of what happened here in the 2016 election of Donald Trump are deep and unfortunately, world-wide. I would call it the “other” globalization.
8
As a resident of France for the past 7 years I can attest that no one in France wants any kind of change. It’s impossible to fire people here, so people don’t hire. When Macron tried to losen the laws regarding this issue he was met with protests. Every law, every change, even the most minimal is met by protests and often the protesters aren’t even affected by the changes. The yellow vests keep protesting, every Saturday they are in Paris now marching. They claim they have no money for gas, yet how do they all get to Paris every Saturday? This last Saturday people from the Northern suburbs were not allowed to board trains to go to Paris, so these people aren’t coming from close by. Again, the money they earn only takes them through half the month, yet have been coming to Paris for the last 4 weeks without a problem. Interesting, no?
6
@Josue Azul, as a fellow resident of Paris (and former Texas resident - bonjour and howdy!), I would gently disagree with a few of your statements. First, it is difficult (and expensive), but certainly not "impossible", to fire people here. (I've done it - twice.) Second, with regard to how the Gilets Jaunes are getting here, 1) a lot of Parisians (centre et banlieue) are marching, so in effect they're already here, 2) many are still coming in on the RER - last Saturday morning there was a steady stream coming from the Luxembourg station (RER B, from the South) in the early morning hours. Towns 30 minutes away on the RER are still within metro Zone 5, a 6-8€ ticket. Finally, 3) the demonstrations are of course not only in Paris, but in towns and cities all over France.
To be clear, I'm not in agreement with a good many of their demands, and hope Macron has better success with his plans, as I think they will benefit France in the long-term. But I think it's a stretch, and rather unfair, to imply that the economic difficulties for rural residents of France are somehow being exaggerated, simply because some of them have found the means to get themselves to Paris to be heard.
35
@Josue Azul
Some people will stand and fight for what is right whilst others whine and cry on their sofas and wonder why things never get better. So how does a poor person get the money to protest? Having been poor, I will explain. You make the fight for better "fill in the blank" a priority. So I go hungry and extra day or two. What difference does that really make to me in real time, none as I was already hungry. Where I gain is when our protests bring improvements to our lives. The tax reversal and wage increase is a start.
6
@Josue Azul
I laughed out loud at the cold logic of your argument. But perhaps they take the trains? Where would you park a car in Paris?
Friedman, I am also afraid for the EU. The EU bureaucracy lead by Juncker and Tusk has caused countries to turn to the right. Macron should have consulted with those who would be effected before deciding to make changes. France doesn't like change and its people can be quite selfish but in this case, the yellow jackets had many good points; there are many French people who are struggling.
Most small businesses can't afford to hire people because of the charges and because it is impossible to fire incompetent people because they will take you to court and the employer always loses. This is why now so many contracts are short term. The migrants have put a huge financial strain on all of Europe and many struggling families are furious that while they are having a hard time, these people, in their eyes, are given so much.
The yellow jackets are a boom for the far left, the far right and the Russians , as well as the petty thieves. All of these groups are inflaming the situation and loving it.
Hopefully Macron will get a hold of it and make the necessary changes but calm this situation which is now completely out of hand in Paris. Otherwise France will get a far left or far right
president in 3 years.
Yes, Brexit is a disaster but it's also the EU's fault. Like Macron, the EU bureaucracy wasn't listening to the people.
I hope the EU stays together and I would like to see a way for the UK to stay in it.
9
@getGar The EU went too far to the right, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger.
It is the result of Anglo-Saxon economics. People don't like it.
9
@R. Littlejohn The problem with the EU is beyond left and right, it's authoritarianism and bureaucracy, which is the mo of both extremes.
Dear Mr Friedman,
Europeans were sold a vision of a democratic and open EU. Instead, Brussels is a vassal of Goldman Sachs that does not work to benefit ordinary people. Are you surprised that after forty years of neo-liberal "reforms" people are finally tired of being robbed? Capitalism in the 21st century is not a "free market" it is a vast racket towards the top. Mr Macron is a representative of the banking class. Europeans are right to be sick of it. Immigrants are not the problem.
45
"If Macron fails, it can bring the end of Europe.”
In the real world, Macron has passed tax cuts for the rich. And now he wants to raise funds in a regressive manner, at the expense of the rural working class. If this is what "Europe" requires to succeed it deserves to fail.
Macron is France's Clinton/Blair figure. He acts as if he's living proof there can be no hope for an alternative to the most rapacious capitalism wrapped in a shiny package. But France has not been totally acquiescent. The true spirit of egalitarianism is still alive there to some degree.
All of this -- the resistances, the backlashes, the steady decline of institutions, the hollowing out of commonly shared spaces and values, the failure to address real problems -- seems endlessly baffling to the Tom Friedmans of the world, the experts, the economists and the like. It's not so surprising to the rest of us.
For instance, some of us have lived on the outskirts of Tom's "superstar" cities our whole lives (for myself, San Francisco, LA and London). We know that less and less is offered by institutions led by men like Macron, but more and more is expected. We are squeezed dry; they need us to commute long hours, because someone has to do the dirty work and we can't afford the rent. We know all about the undervalued and uncompensated care that goes into sustaining Tom's superstars. We know that precarity is worse than ever, while Tom frets about the last domino falling on his formerly orderly gameboard.
32
Very well written article. Another major problem with Europe is that there is no current job stability, primarily for the young people. Every open position is usually only a temporary contract ranging from six to 12 months in length. Middle management jobs are being moved to Poland, Hungary or in my case...the UK, because the salaries and pension responsibilities are much cheaper. The middle class is rapidly disintegrating and only the interests of the super wealthy are paid attention to by the current governments.
15
This article raises a good point that I think is hard for those of us with comfortable incomes to understand -- caring about the environment is a luxury. I remember a decade ago asking students in Hungary why they weren't more concerned about the environment, animal rights, etc. They smiled and said exactly that: that was a luxury the west has, but for them, being able to heat their homes through the winter was far more important. People who live on the economic edges live day to day. The future doesn't matter as much as having some food on the table now. I suspect that is why a lot of folks in places like W. Virginia seems to vote against their interests -- they're looking for the quick fix to their problems, which Trump offered. Rising sea levels and extinct polar bears are not of much interest. And they'll take bad air if it means a little financial security. It's better to cough than be hungry.
53
Leadership needs to be more imaginative. The biggest threat to peace and harmony in Europe and the US must be identified and mitigated as soon as possible. Income inequality is the burr under our saddle. That means that capitalism is no longer working. Wealth is no longer flowing evenly through our culture. Without that function, the poor will stay poor and the rich get richer.
14
As an expat-"city slicker" I can tell you that Macron has heard the yellow vests who have legitimate grievances; seen the effect of Trump's election on world order; and is witnessing the runaway train headed for the cliffs of Dover called Brexit.
It's clear that his reforms to employment, taxes, and pensions are necessary to make the economy sustainable. It's also clear that he needs to recalibrate the implementation. You can't take the man's diesel truck away over night. It will go in the long run; but we're kidding ourselves if we think otherwise, or let the oil industry decide for us.
Public opinion is turning against the yellow vest movement when it was infiltrated by the casseurs (the "breakers" who smash shop windows, torch cars, and deface the Arc de Triomphe), and anarchists from the extreme left and right.
France, and the EU, enter this phase of a global economic reorganisation with a social contract that even the right wants to protect (unlike the US). It will take intelligence and strategy to make it sustainable. What's the alternative...entering a new menacing world order lead by economic bullies on your own, as Britain will soon do?
I'm betting on Macron and the EU whose combined economic strength is second only to the US. We hear the wake-up call.
20
@Rob
The EU is not economically strong. I like Europe a lot, but it is economically mediocre outside of Germany. Economically Asia makes Europe look like it moves in slow motion.
1
FDR famously said (paraphrased) that he would try changes to fix the economy, and if those didn't work, he would try something else. THAT is pragmatism.
The real world success of New Deal policies (high demand, high wages, limited work hours, progressive taxation) - led to 4 election wins for FDR, and built a foundation for decades of broad prosperity, financial stability, and strong trust by the public in our leaders.
Since 1980, policy in developed nations, has been moving in the opposite direction. With opposite results. For decades. And the worse things get, the harder leaders cling to the same failed "solutions".
TF lauds Macron's policies of cutting taxes on the rich: As if lack of capital were the problem. It clearly is not. Lack of demand is the problem. And the global race to the bottom makes it fatally problematic for any first world nation, to create necessary demand, and keep wages at livable levels for most workers.
TF lauds Macron's policies of cutting wages, as if that will make workers more "competitive". Competitive? With China? How? By matching *those* low wages? Not possible, without massive political upheaval.
Things get worse for the majority, even as efficiency increases. That is a hallmark of a failed system. Establishment politicians offer only more of the same. Which is why establishment politicians are being increasingly rejected world wide: Even in favor of terribly flawed alternatives.
21
@A Populist Macron is a goal directed pragmatist. The goal is a strong and democratic France in a strong and democratic EU. The French countryside evolved in an era of high subsidies for French agriculture and relatively modest fuel costs. Neither can be sustained, but people will continue to live in rural areas. Macron saw that something else must be tried because the straightforward solution brought out the Yellow Vests. Governance is an experimental science dealing with a hypercomplex, ever-changing problem where what can work is as unknowable as the future. The leader has to have the courage to try with a high probability that what s/he does will not work and must be changed.
Macron is now listening to the mayors of towns and other local leaders. In the process of listening he is also engaging their support.
The EU, and today's France are works in progress facing challenges not solved well anywhere else.
The EU is much more than France and Germany. I live in Latvia, that with Estonia and Lithuania comprise the Baltic States. Early changes that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union started here. The remarkable unity of the people that linked a human chain between Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius in August 1989 may have marked a turning point for the Soviet Union. Now, Estonia is a leader in the EU in digitalization followed by Latvia and Lithuania. While these three countries are not the richest they point the way that the EU vision can be made sustainable
4
@Vid Beldavs,
Let me tell you what it looks like from the perspective of the last 90 some years in the USA.
In the 1920's, things looked great. Then, in the 1930's, the Great Depression hit the U.S. By 1932, it was terrible. Huge unemployment. Skilled workers out of jobs. Leaders saying NOTHING they can do. Like now, they blamed it on lack of skills, etc. FDR’s policies, and the World War 2 Demand, suddenly put all those “unskilled” workers to use, and an obvious lesson about macroeconomics had been learned.
In 1950's thru 1970’s US, one could support a family on one income. Now, it is very hard on 2.
I know, why should Latvia care? Why should skilled workers care? Because you will be next. Due to lack of aggregate demand in the economy, YOUR wages brought down to unlivable levels *also*.
Failure of economic systems is one historically common reason for political upheaval and wars. Wars have sometimes actually improved economies, because of the sudden increase in Demand. It would be truly tragic, if leadership fails to find an alternative means to war, for increasing aggregate demand to keep up wages and employment, and thus maintain political stability.
FDR's New Deal policies, are the historically proven means of quickly building the largest and most prosperous middle class in history. France may have some problems with corrupt structures. But tax giveaways to the rich, and wage cuts to workers, are the opposite of the policies needed to turn this around.
6
@A Populist
Hear, hear.
1
Mr. Friedman,
Reading the title of your article made me doubt the content, but as a EU citizen living in its centre, but outside its borders, I think your analysis is spot-on. Bringing political responsibility and leverage closer to the people is what allows long term success, as shown by the country I live in.
7
“... the countries that will thrive in this era are the ones that have the most nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs, who can compete locally, regionally, nationally and globally...”
This is exactly what Macron was trying to bring about. Contrary to a lot of comments here, I think Macron was changing what needed to be changed in order to make France a nimble, adaptable country with competitively educated workers ready for competitive employers who weren’t afraid of hiring said workers and being either stuck with them for life and/or taxed to the point said employers stopped growing and/or left the country. The SNCF worker benefits were outrageous even for France. But only new hires were going to feel the changes. All current employees were going to be grandfathered in, losing nothing, yet they went into a meltdown anyway. The changes in the university system were designed to train more young people for more diverse jobs. But even the high school students in France have unions and they took to the streets. And the diesel tax? That blame belongs squarely to Nicolas Hulot, even though he tries to distance himself from it now. Good lord, they are mad about “prélèvement à la source”, witholding income tax from paychecks(!) How do they pay their taxes when they spend it all before the due date?
The French are neither nimble nor adaptable. They doom themselves to rotting in the past.
9
I love immigrants, but immigration needs to be slowed. I love growth, but continued globalization needs to be slowed. It’s time to absorb all of the changes without piling more and more on. People, governments and policies need time to adapt. There needs to be policies and programs to help those left behind get back on their feet and onto a sustainable path. It’s time to rebuild our relationships with each other before we start ferociously competing with each other again. People need to feel valued and respected or else nothing else is possible.
27
There never has been nor will there ever be a United States of Europe. Too much innate ethnic sectarian nationalism conflict.
The primary purpose of the European Union and the Eurozone is to control German socioeconomic educational demographic scientific technological supremacy. That is the ethnic sectarian diplomatic military price of leading Europe in to two world wars and losing.
France cannot and will not be able to compete with nor replace Germany in what is left of the EU after BREXIT. France has no ethnic sectarian connection special relationship with the United States of America. Napoleon was the last shot at French European hegemony.
2
It's true that France plays a critical role in EU unity, and this role suddenly suddenly seems to be uncertain.
But on the other hand, Tom has been wrong about basically everything, ever. So that's grounds for hope.
34
"Macron pushed through four vital structural fixes that fostered growth: "
Growth for whom? Why are statements like this always put out there without discussing who benefits most? And what good does it do when 90% of the growth goes in one direction and 10% goes in the other? No matter, so long as its "growth"...
41
The demise of US has been predicted and anticipated for at least a century, even proved by a quasi-science developed in the Soviet Union. The demise of the EU has also been predicted and wished-for since it's creation a quarter-century ago. Both the US and the EU are still here and will be here in the foreseeable future. A structure will hold as long as there is enough energy to sustain it. Despite centrifugal forces currently affecting both system, the democratic foundation will provide that energy.
6
Interestingly, Putin is also one of these far-right populist nationalist leaders. No one suffered more in the era of globalization than Russia, who underwent the breakup of the Soviet Union and an dramatic fall in real wages.
3
Macron, in contrast to the neo-liberal line, has not done the right thing. He's done exactly the wrong things. George H.W. Bush called it voodoo economics: tax cuts for the wealthy will power the supply side, while service cuts will cheapen government and labor, and the result will be a boom. The result is never a boom, always a bust. France was set to actually grow again - until Macron's war against consumer demand. The only way out of the supply side trap for the majority of people is debt - which was the American way out. Debt on the government side, and most significantly, debt on the private side. Long term, this is the way to kill the middle class. But it is a recipe that enriches to an unimaginable degree the upper 1 percent, and those are the people whose views are reflected in this column. Austerity plus supply side pseudo-science leads to disaster. And France is paying the price.
16
If Russia had not meddled in the Brexit vote and been the deciding factor in that razor thin margin and had Russia not meddled in the last U.S. Presidential election, leading to Trump's razor thin margin of victory, then this opinion piece by Mr. Friedman would never have been written. It seems to me that all problematic roads lead to Moscow. We know the buildings that the Russian Internet Research Agency occupies - those who wreak all of the havoc with our democracies. We need an American President who will look Putin right in the eyes and tell him that he is to cease these activities, otherwise we will send a couple dozen cruise missiles his way and demolish this organization's headquarters. And then, when he laughs at the American President, we need a leader strong enough to say enough is enough and launch the cruise missile strike. That will end Russian meddling in the West's democratic affairs, at least in the short term. If Russia did not exist, there would have been no Brexit and no Donald Trump. It is time we deal squarely with the problem and stop denying or minimizing the danger the Russians pose to all of us who wish to be free. I have been a lifelong Democrat, but honestly, where is Ronald Reagan when we need him most?
32
@Rich D Yes, Russia's role in harming democracy, the press, and international frameworks for cooperation should be recognized. But as for your proposed response as a solution: missiles do not have a good track record of resolving problems, but rather creating new and bigger problems.
10
@Rich D What goes around comes around, right? The USA has been intervening in the politics and economies of countries around the world, mostly since WW2. The list is a long one and includes, Vietnam, Iraq, Panama, Guatemala, DR, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and on and on. When the US wanted a canal, a revolution was fomented in Colombia. Panama being formerly part of Colombian territory. No, I don't think shooting weapons around is going to help.
There are three big problems now and they are very difficult to resolve. 1) too much population when technology and global labor markets have made many people redundant. People are having too many kids for what the job market will support, going forward. 2) The robotic revolution is just taking off and it will change the very nature of work and society. Robots can work 24/7, don't come to work drunk or high, don't sexually assault co-workers and NEVER go on strike or complain. That future is here. 3) Human caused climate change is here and it is real and apparently there is not enough societal interest, anywhere, to do much about it. It is very likely too late to positively effect much on that front anyway, even if it was possible. The problems seem intractable given the limited intelligence and will of people everywhere, esp given the poor leadership that prevails.
2
@Rich D
You want to launch cruise missiles against a nation that has 7000 nuclear weapons??? What good would that do? How about we stop NATO from encroaching ever closer to Russia? Did you ever think that might be one of the reasons Putin is paranoid? Can you imagine the reaction in Washington DC if Russia brokered an alliance with Canada to allow Russian military bases along the Canadian-US border? They would lose their minds on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Yet they expect Russia to accept NATO as a defender of Democracy. The only war that will ever be fought between the United States and Russia will be nuclear so what is the reason for NATO? The answer is the unending money grab from arms dealers supplying weapons for conventional warfare. The kind of global business that Friedman loves.
2
It could just as easily be said that what some consider to be the possible end of Europe others will regard as a beginning. Something incredible has happened, a Mercurial encounter amounting to a wake up has appeared, one with the power to bring about the changes that will allow us a new beginning. The Europe that Mr. Friedman is talking about belonged to a different time, when man indeed was more of a necessary evil, as the singer Pearl Baily used to belt out on my mothers record player. And then the unexpected happened, we woke up one day in a world no longer spinning in the dark. Now that Europe which has outlived its usefulness is coming to an end, torn down to make room for a new way of life, more suitable for the morning which now has broken.
2
Nicely written, as always, Tom.
Unfortunatly for your thesis, not all the peple happen to live in "the most nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs, who can compete locally, regionally, nationally and globally."
Yes, nice words, Tom. But not how people really live. As we see by the yellow jackets in France.
Macron has shown that France cannot hold the EU together because he can't hold his own county together.
As someone in France said, Macron is cncerned with the end of the world. We are concerned with the end of the month.
What we see is that those French outside of Paris are not convinced that your world view is correct. For some different but some similar reasons the British voted to get out of the EU. For different but for some of the same reasons the US has voted for Trump and a Republican Senate. Italy is pushing the budget boundaries of the EU, which France is now joining. Which also accounts for German and other EU members voting in right wing parties, and Anela's loss of her parties leadership.
The people are hurting, Thomas. They are voting, Thomas. And it is not for your world view.
16
The main underlying problem is the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. Unless the rich sense that the “natives are becoming restless”, that won’t change.The result can be seen in the history of the Soviet Union and all through the World. It won’t result in democracy, but a succession of dictators trying to strong-arm order while mouthing platitudes. The rich will find themselves in factional disputes like the Medici of old, and there will be no peace for generations.
23
I was doing fine until this:
“the countries that will thrive in this era are the ones that have the most nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs“
Can anybody explain what this means? Examples would be helpful.
34
@Tombo Perhaps we can look at Friedman's travel itinerary to get a hint of what he's offering. Singapore? Dubai? Shanghai? Authoritarian enclaves that run a tight ship. Big money for the big boys. Democracy is for "little people."
2
@Tombo It's probably just a restatement of the very old idea that technological change usually leads to employment upheaval, and the locales that surf that wave of change most successfully are not the ones that fight it (like the yellow vests) but the ones that embrace it & confront it head on by making it easy for people to retool with new skill-sets to take advantage of new & often better opportunities.
@MadManMark
Thanks Mad Man, that makes sense. Why didn’t he just say that?
I still don’t get what a “social entrepreneur” is.
Friedman knows only what he already knows. He has been preaching his soft propaganda of neo-liberal politics, economics and philosophy since day one as it has failed over and over again. Historical truths has always exposed that the earth was not flat and that China’s elite was not going to enrich the world let alone China. Just as USA’s elite has not enriched the world let alone USA. And just as France’s elite has not enriched France. Friedman will never admit his failed beliefs nor will Trump or Macron.
Their simplistic overview allows them to remain in their bubble and claim that if they go or are replaced no one can ever replace them. They are indispensable. They are the best in class. In the end Friedman too shy to say it himself quotes his french colleague who mirrors his own elite fear “suddenly what happens in France goes beyond France. We are the last barrier protecting the European idea. If Macron fails, it can bring the end of Europe.” If that’s not the colour of elite neo-liberal propaganda then I don’t know what is. This too shall pass. I for one believe that at the end of the day good men and women will prevail.
36
@SenDan talk about others in a bubble?! Worse, some are in a cloud of smugness. Friedman is like a pathologist in 1979 examining the remains of a victim of a poorly understood new emerging chronic debilitating immune disease . While you seem like an experienced physician looking on saying: This pathologist is misguided, this too shall pass.
@Thomas Friedman, thanks for this "the sky is falling" Op-Ed on France. I am sure they will solve their problems faster than we can.
I would recommend you focus on what is wrong here, there's plenty to choose from, before you venture overseas.
Why not start with our Energy Department policies, the Interior, Education, HUD? just pick one, there's problems everywhere caused by the Trump, his Cabinet and the ever present lobbyists. They have now got to a position of strength having got rid of the cabinet secretaries, Zinke and Pruitt.
9
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
-- John Donne
12
Friedman makes a sound - and obvious - point that the wealth gap between both U.S and European cities and their sprawling midsections widens as technology and its associative high paying skills concentrates in urban centers. This spells serious political chaos and an alarming attraction to authoritarian governance. One thing I’d like scribes like Tom to focus on is solutions for a significant transfer of wealth to the the “yellow vest” segment of our respective citizenries because an elite few in both America and the EU are adding to their obsence pile while most others struggle to get by. The enormous GOP tax giveaway to corporations and stakeholders is one example of moving in the wrong direction, assuming we think the preservation of stable democratic rule a worthy inheritance for our children.
22
@the doctor
Wealth gap perhaps, but not for those willing and able to work. Even laborers in the Marcellus Shale oil and gas fields in Pennsylvania easily earn $100,000 a year with a little overtime.
2
Putin wants Europe dis -united so he can force a re-building of the USRR empire ,with minimal resistance from that corner of the globe, given the fact that he has Trump and US "agreeable" with his goal. He will undo what Reagan and Gorbatchev achieved.
8
How is the end of the European Union the "end of Europe"?
7
No, no more than the end of the United States would mean the end of America.
Nobody that isn’t extremely wealthy is buying what the E.U. and U.S. elites are selling anymore.
15
@Larry Romberg
Enjoy the new Apple Campus
1
At first I thought you really got it: "Rural ... insurgencies of ... working-poor ..., which have not generally benefited from the surges in globalization, immigration and technology."
But then you close with a classically smug city-slicker remark: "I think the countries that will thrive in this era are the ones that have the most nimble cities."
So, your answer to rural working poor not benefiting from globalization is to build nimble cities?
15
You’re right. He should have written “nimble peasants”.
1
From the column:
"Now there are high-wage, high-skilled jobs and low-wage, low-skilled jobs. But high-wage, middle-skilled jobs are vanishing..."
This is only partially true but remember this at all times: any work has an intrinsic value. The problem is we are following old ways of allocating pay to workers and, at the same time, the effective means by which workers assert and demand their value have diminished. What is happening in France now and elsewhere can be seen in part as an effort to find new ways to insist on adjusting to the true value of work.
How much is it worth to a high end tech employee if his toilet backs up and floods his million dollar house with sewage? What is it really worth to high paid professionals to have other people fix up their take home dinners? What is the ultimate value of someone who slings you a hamburger and fries when you stop on a long car trip?
There are many ways to calculate or just speculate on the value of work. If there is no one to fix the overflowing toilet, the value is in the thousands of dollars. In terms of raw economic power, there are too many people willing to do what otherwise might be seen as menial tasks, so the pay scale goes down.
All work should provide enough money on which to live decently. Otherwise, it becomes a genteel form of slavery, dragging body and soul paycheck to paycheck. Unless we voluntarily adjust to the real value of services, we are in for a long, dark period of struggle and, yes, violence.
29
Mr. Friedman's historic perspective is a tad myopic. The situation that France is facing had been burgeoning long before Macron's arrival; he merely loaded the last straw on the dromedary's back. His fuel tax simply sent the French working class resorting to a political solution that they have honed since 1572: taking it to the streets: le plus ça change . . .
Mr. Friedman also missed the inevitable dissolution of the post WWII economic order, which was built on unsustainable remnants of colonial oppression and flew in the face of the democratic values for which he lauds the US and EU. Moreover, the West's contradictory post-colonial imposition of trade dependency on developing countries and superficial touting of "global democratic values" at the same time were doomed to collide, resulting in the current record immigration from these same nations into the EU and the US. Ironic, isn't it, that the most powerful nations of the North Atlantic now feel invaded by the very countries whose borders they freely violated over four-hundred years and to whom they owe their economic and political ascendancy over that same period?
Finally, after being the largest economy for almost 1,000 years, China is back. It took British determination and two Opium Wars to pull them down, but now China is back and outstripping the West by their own rules.
With regrets to Mr. Friedman, there is no resetting this "new reality"; there is only recalibrating our "old expectations."
16
@GuiG,
The former colonies of western nations are rising to positions of economic equivalency because much of their technical know-how has been learned in the universities and colleges of those western nations. It would be nice if they could also up their games in terms of political maturity, and lack of blatant corruption.
China has risen again economically (but I'm afraid to say not politically) because the western powers moved their industrial production there. Also, China was out of the game for a long while because, like Russia and others, it chose to run an economic system - communism - that simply doesn't work. i.e. it does not create wealth. They did that to themselves and because of that their constant sniping because they feel slighted and belittled by the west is in fact pathetic.
China is a country with forced labour for political challengers to the all dominant and corrupt communist party, and does other nasty things like extract the organs from those prisoners for sale to the highest bidder.
The western world should seriously consider shutting China out of it's markets and educational institutions completely unless and until it becomes a democratic, and trustworthy country. How likely is it to happen with a leader who just declared himself ruler for life? Is that the west's fault too?
Absent among all these ruminations is a much larger and dangerous issue: Demography. Europeans (as well as residents of Japan and a host of other "advanced" societies) are no longer willing to be burdened with childrearing in sufficient quantities to remain viable. Like climate change, the potential consequences seem far off into the future, but like climate change we can already apprehend the future, and it ain't pretty. Globalization, Brexit, a new French Revolution, rising inequality, ethnic transformation, economic upheaval, and the clanging of swords are but the harbinger of the new reality that aging societies can look forward to as the clock ticks.
4
This is the age of globalization. The world is indeed flat, "connected" as Friedman calls it in the Brexit context. It creates winners and losers. In the Western World it has mostly created a vast struggling middle class.
As Robert Reich has pointed out, first, women had to join the workforce to help families keep up their standard of living. Next, work hours grew longer, and finally, loans had to help pay for expenses - even education. Long gone are the times when Joe Buck, a single earner, could support his wife, kids, pay the mortgage for a modest home and put two cars in the driveway. I think the top income tax rate was 91% at the time.
Who else but the French to say enough already? Macron will be gone soon, a failed experiment in avoiding a radical as head of state. The French people will have to decide where to turn next. Hard left, hard right, stay with Europe or follow the British folly? They're not going to go for Macron v.2.
Nobody should blame the older generation for fondly remembering the good old days. Or the younger generation for their frustrations trying to make ends meet. Russia knows how to pour oil on the fire and draw political benefit. China knows how to produce cheap consumer goods that keep us thinking we are not as bad off as we actually are. In the meantime we have leadership that is a criminal fraud. What could possibly go wrong??
65
International cooperation in the area of income tax law enforcement is an absolute necessity. Eliminating cash might be part of the answer. Also we should be less shy about increasing the minimum wage. If you own a business and can't pay your employees at least $15 an hour, maybe you should just be eliminated from the market place and make your employees available to more efficient businesses. Finally we need to start a conversation on worker retraining. I don't think it takes that much to turn a 50 year old taxi driver into an electrician. A little assistance is all that might be needed.
6
@J Estevao
As a 50 year old high voltage substation electrician, I don’t think you understand the complexity of becoming a skilled tradesman. I didn’t start my apprenticeship until I was in my late thirties, and that was barely enough time to give me a healthy length of time to be useful. Skilled physical labor is not a task suited to be learned by someone in their fifties.
36
@J Estevao I think the condescension of your last two sentences illustrate why your attitude is actually emblematic as part of the problem, not the solution.
Number one, certified electricians possess a lot more knowledge and training than you give them credit for. Number two, train all the additional electricians you want, but a) why do we need more unless there is more demand (construction) and b) without that extra demand, all you are going to do with this shift is exacerbate the overall problem by driving down wages for electricians as well. Number three, you missed Friedman's entire point, you have to recognize that people at this stage in their life are often not interested in or equipped to start from scratch (I'm going to guess you are in your 20s?)
Finally I'm going to note that your implication that any business can be competitive when paying workers $15/hr, completely irrespective of what their competition does, shows a very basic ignorance of how capitalism works. That is actually an idea more like what the USSR tried, setting prices and wages independent of market forces.
France represents roughly 15% of the EU and is noted for having a population that can bring down gov'ts without resorting to violence. The German AFD grew with backing from the forgotten workers and unemployed in Germany. Britain, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland and other EU nations have work forces in manufacturing that are being squeezed by China and other Asian countries. Hence stagnant wages and particularly in Germany zero hour contracts, part time jobs, and no benefits. The end of globalisation is already under way in the USA and EU as well as many other places around the world. Govrnments may run but they cannot hide from angry electorates. There is no crisis, no disaster just business as usual as repeated many times over the centuries. There is certainly adaptation as should be expected in democracies.
3
Except I still fail to see where any of the radical right parties anywhere in the world offer a different solution or future perspective. They are same old same old plus violence against those who did NOT create society's problems. France is a very special political field and more there than anywhere, any attempt at reforming this monstrum of entitlement that generations have become accustomed to is a monumental task. Macron or anybody else trying to do so will see people in the streets.
I am holding my breath for Madame President Le Pen. She will restore order right? Just like Orban, Five Star and the Trump did. Bring it all back as it always was despite the fact that the world has moved on.
The climate tax was hardly what brought France down. The inequality in paychecks has a different root and good luck trying to 'fix' that.
So many "roads lead to China" because, for better or worse, their system works and keeps working. Yes, China is plagued by oligarchs and autocrats and it will never have the kind of civil liberties that maybe we once had some of. But it just keeps lifting huge masses of people out of poverty and into the standard of living they never knew they wanted. Wealth isn't shared absolutely, but it is shared more than enough.
3
@The Dog
I think China raised it's standard of living by taking jobs away from the western world. It was not an organic creation/expansion of an economy from scratch. Rather it was a lifting of it from other countries. And now those countries want those jobs back.
China would not have progressed economically and industrially as fast (if at all) without western corporations moving all the factories there.
And China does not play fair ball because it massively subsidizes entire industries and keeps competitors out.
I'm glad to see the west starting to address China's underhanded practices.
3
@The Dog
China today remains a dictatorship that suppresses all free political discourse and thought. And it has many millions of its citizens still living in poverty. It is in no way a good model for the West.
2
Europe is great. The EU, not so much. The EU is bureaucratic, not democratic, it deserves to come to an end. But long live the individual different nations of Europe. Vive l'Europe et vive la différence.
25
@Philly My observation: Usually those political players attacking the EU for being not democratic enough are also the first to fight any initiative that would make the EU more democratic. Just look at what happened to the EU constitution a few years ago. The solution is not less EU, it's more of it.
2
Disagree. Europe without the EU, which is in fact very democratic if you'd be bothered to inform yourself, is a reason to leave. For the absolute majority of my colleagues and myself. Not rich btw, and not working for the EU either.
@Philly - you list your location as expat - based on your comment it is reasonable to suppose that you have not experienced Europe as an expat before the EU - if you had, you wouldn’t vive la difference. But once Brexit goes through you can always move to Britain and vive la difference to your heart’s content.
One has to be overwhelmed and astounded when the realization hits that we have been civilizations for thousands of years and find ourselves at a point where seemingly nothing has been accomplished by the vast majority of people.
When human beings set out to explore, discover and create civilizations who decided that there should be a 1%, a 20% an 80%? Why was it necessary as civilization moved from one century to the next, and one age (agriculture) to the next (industrial) that a middle class would emerge? What prompted people to align into groups of liberal vs conservative in the first place? Why was it so bad just being human and aspiring to a good life versus being white or black or brown or others? When did we lose sight of what it means to be human, to share with others, to have enough, to help those less fortunate? Surely the global number of people who want to be bad are far outnumbered by those who want to be good? Why isn't it possible for the good to prevail?
9
Macron has become a victim of globalization, or France's failure to deal with it. Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries have been able to deal with globalization, and their economies are flourishing. France is suffering even in agriculture, with farmers committing suicide because of their poor economic situation. Germany produces more milk than France, and has become very competitive in dairy production. Macron has focused these problems from a elitist point of view being out of touch with the workers and the middle class.
The Democrats made the same mistake in the U.S. and we got Trump. France is lucky to have an educated populace, and not to have Fox News, and the web of right wing supporters, otherwise France would have its Trump by now. Italy got his Salvini when it got 500,000 migrants who could not absorb in its failing economy or send North. Let me add that this is not the time to be pessimistic about Europe, which has been in worse situations than now, and has pulled through. Macron, an enlightened politician, seems to be learning from his mistakes.
7
"In this world, highly centralized countries will fare much worse than decentralized ones."
You mean highly complex, interdependent systems of geopolitical cooperation actually require an interest in maintaining, if they are to be expected to last?
What's the definition of 'solipsism', again? I got distracted by my Twitter mentions.
2
The current widespread discontent is ALL about economics and the 21st century version of capitalist system resulting in a very few highly-enriched "winners" vs many, many lower-paid workers.
This nations legislative bodies are beholden to large financial contributions to pay for re-election campaigns. They then pass laws and taxes that benefit their benefactors the uber-wealthy and the corporations.
Our internal national divides are only surficially political or geographic; and these internal divides are promoted by those individuals and corporations who control the government levers of power.
The initial solutions to this pervasive assault on democracy include:
1) Campaign Finance reform - public funding of elections and repeal of Citizen's United decision
2) Twelve-year term limits for all members of Congress - no more lifetime jobs in Congress
3) Progressive taxation on all forms of income and wealth accumulation (dividends, real estate, stock options, inheritances, etc)
This list could go on and on - but these are a good place to start to return a sense of citizen's engagement with their government that has been lost.
17
@GTM good ideas, but-- be very careful with term limits. What I have seen in a state that has implemented them is that the power of the individual term-limited legislator has lessened but the power of the non-term-limited lobbyists have grown greatly. They greatly influence inexperienced law makers. Rather than term limits, or along with it, a curb on professional lobbyist influence is needed.
16
in order to save the EU Brussels needs to drift from the left to the right. The bright young things might not like this but they'll appreciate seeing the lifeboats when they are drowning.
2
@Johnny dangerous
There won’t be lobbyists if there will be publicly financed elections! Or this will be straightforward corruption
"I think the countries that will thrive in this era are the ones that have the most nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs, who can compete locally, regionally, nationally and globally."
This sounds nice and think-tankish but is in reality just meaningless twaddle. What exactly is a nimble city with nimble leaders? What exactly makes a coalition adaptive? These are stale shibboleths from Friedman's earlier pro-globalization screeds. They are disconnected from what is happening in France.
The ugly shallowness of modern corporate cultural life has always been a primary defect of globalism, one to which the French have been especially attuned. For awhile people tolerated it on the expectation that somehow the soul-numbing loss of cultural depth and texture would be compensated by greater riches and the dazzling new possibilities of gadgetry.
Now ordinary folks have realized that globalization concentrates wealth in the financiers at the top and glossy plastic toys are merely the apotheosis of emptiness, so they are screaming for the degradation to stop. They want to go back to the simpler things they had before. But population explosion and the resulting environmental crisis tell them that there is nothing to return to, only endless stifling days of slow gray death.
And deprived of their sense of human connection by the impersonality of globalization, they blindly lash out.
91
@woofer Very well put but I am not sure even the people know what they want. Facebook is not an artifact of a simpler time, but ask how many of them want to give it up. Ditto for smartphones. Maybe fewer people (a lot fewer) would help, but how to get there is the big question. Perhaps a lottery for who gets to have children. In a generation or two the population of the earth could be halved? Quartered? I don't know if we'll ever succeed with solutions like this, but its something to ponder.
3
The solution to the problem, if there is one, is very large taxes on the wealthy in every country combined with measures which prevent them from escaping them.
What Friedman will not way – because he has enjoyed living with the very wealthy in Aspen – is that Piketty, author of “Capital” and Tooze, author of “Crashed” are correct. For the last ten years policies have not “Made America Great again,” or for that matter made any other country better. They have, though, made the very rich richer while impoverishing the rest of us.
Only the passage of massive taxes on the rich combined with income support programs for everyone else, price controls on pharmaceuticals which make it possible for the average citizen to survive, and wealth charges which force anyone using a private plane to pay a tax so high that the private aviation business dies have a chance of restoring some type of economic balance. History, though suggests this will not happen.
Instead, look for global warming to solve the problem. Mr. Freedman has been eloquent and correct as regards the need to reduce emission. Sadly, the 99 percent of the population that is suffering from global economic stagnation will not care. They are interested in their economic survival. Friedman his fellow Aspen billionaires must step up and address the economic problem first. Sadly, they will not.
As he once wrote, “we are cooked.”
14
The new fuel tax levied by Macron was not the reason that yellow vested protestors took to th streets: it was however, the "tipping point." When an undeniable display of reactionaries showing their anger and fustration with The State to th point where even jail is not much less of a price to pay than the neverending, daily, stress filled psychological mind-set of "just trying to get by" and all th grief and shame that accompanies it. People of any nationality will only allow themselves to be pushed for a finite period of time before they react by pushing back.
My only wonder now is, what will be th "tipping point," here in the US of A, that will finally turn a relatively peaceful couple of decades into a horror filled, ugly landscape possibly for years to come? It's coming. The question isn't even WHEN because it'll be in th near future judging from demonstrations of th last 2 years. The question, however is, what'll be the Tipping Point?
7
@thcatt
To answer your question of when the "tipping point" will happen here in the US. I wonder if there will be one. Trump has conned at least 37 % of the country . McConnell is packing the federal courts with extreme right wing judges. The news about Trump such as it is continues unabated. The article on his taxes a while back should have been a tipping point. The same with the Trump Foundation. Unfortunately it becomes so much noise that I suppose many tune it out. Perhaps the 'tipping point" will be another recession? Trump unlike Marcon does not care one iota about our country. The Democratic Party has a good chance of shooting itself in the foot once again. The "tipping point" for Trump should have happened a year ago.
Is our country so blind that it cannot see how much damage Trump has done ?
Friedman has so little respect, not only for the common people, but for the history of how nations hold together. Would anything he'd have had to say in 1066 or 1776 or 1861 sounded any different? No.
Macron was anointed by the world media who felt they hadn't done enough to prevent Trump. And now he would trade his legs for even Trump's poll numbers.
The EU has no reason to exist. A hard Brexit is the only cure for this mess. Even without a deal, the UK economy is too important for Europe to ignore, especially given its steadfast trading partners, the USA and Commonwealth nations.
Let the Chicken Littles cluck until their heads fall off. The real world is so much bigger than they are.
12
I think Mr Friedman will be embarrassed by this article when he rereads it in, say, June 2019.
Like many from the US (just about the last outpost of proudly-worn mono-culturalism), he has looked at everything he sees as if it were somehow similar to what he (thinks he) sees in the US. It isn't at all.
The view from French carefully-responsible journalists is that the situation has deep roots in sociopolitical mistakes from around the time Macron born and has gotten worse with each successive gov't as they ignored the obvious.
Before the first demonstration, Macron clearly understood that things must change and he announced changes *before* the 1st march. And he took steps to try to get the changes in view a.s.a.p. Those changes are still being fostered.
Le Président Jupiter is no more. His last (I think) formal televised speech lasted 13 minutes. It was clear and (I and others think) understandable. A first in French history :-)
And he's planning on taxing GAFA :-).
Now that the (EU-recognized) Int'l Court of Justice has said that the UK isn't trapped and can just walk away from the Letter of Intent (because it's a political document), that is what Ms May is going to do next year.
She may call an election before 5 May 2022 but my guess is that she won't.
US journalists need to look at the US better.
The US is going to be in much deeper trouble for much longer than Greater Europe.
3
I believe that Mr. Flat-world, internationalist Friedman is a recognized leader of the globalized cosmopolitan world that the yellow vests and Trump voters are rebelling against. As such, it is not surprising that he finds himself chastened at the wholesale rejection of his dream for the future. He is the absolute archetype of the university educated liberal who long ago stopped even noticing that most of his fellow citizens could participate in the shiny new world that he and his ilk were creating. His message was "look out world, because we're going to change everything, and you can't stop us". The world's reply was to elect Trump and shut down the Champs Elysee while lighting up a few Mercedes. This is how the world will stop you, Mr. Friedman. You and your elite will not be allowed to run away with all the money. They will stop you, even if it hurts us all, because it will hurt your elite the most.
37
@Tom Trump, of all people, will safe the poor? You must be joking.
1
Redistribute wealth to the working classes so that they share in the wealth. Check out the first graph in the article below, which will give an epiphany to intelligent readers who have not yet seen it. Same phenomenon is in France. Those of you with a quantitative bent don't even have to read the words.
https://lanekenworthy.net/2008/09/03/slow-income-growth-for-middle-america/
Add in ethno-nationalism, which is normal in humans and other apes, and the explanation is done.
Next case.
7
It should be clarified that the Germans and French were among the first to violate the fiscal rules governing the euro - and with no consequence except for the disastrous encouragement they gave others.
8
all that business of low skilled workers v mid skilled workers is window dressing. It was never inevitable that wages for the lowest eighty percent of the population in the US (just to limit it to this country) stagnate for forty years. Political choices were made. Winners and losers were chosen. When sending entire factories to China became easier to do with no penalties but, quite to the contrary, tax advantages, well...rust can be avoided or it can be encouraged. We encouraged it, and blamed the victims. The winners got rich and the losers got bitter. Greed is good, fat returns on investment have been enshrined as an entitlement of the one percent, and they are willing to do in civic institutions and long standing core values to get it...meanwhile the working poor have little to lose. This isn't going to end well.
139
"the United Nations of Europe, now known as the European Union"
There has never been a United Nations of Europe.
The push to create that from what started as a customs union is what is causing the trouble in Britain mentioned here.
The failure of the EU to have the basic mechanisms of a nation to back up its Euro is what is causing the trouble in Italy mentioned here. It caused the same trouble in Greece, and but may well cause the same in Spain soon.
The core of the EU is France and Germany, and it always has been since they and the Low Countries formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951.
Friedman notes that now France's voters are unhappy. Well, German voters are unhappy too -- they don't want to be one nation with the problems of Greece, Italy, or any enlargement as to Turkey. Germans too don't like the way economic reforms have left half of them without steady jobs or hopes for rising income.
This isn't just France. And it is the very core of the EU.
The basic problem is the point of view expressed by Friedman in this article -- globalization has left behind and left economically crippled far too many, while passing all the benefits to a few.
That isn't just a minor defect needing correction. It is a fundamental flaw in the design of globalization.
Friedman here is in denial. That won't work anymore. More and more people won't be denied.
36
@Mark Thomason
The issue is not globalization but the benefits of globalization going to the tiny few. The west and especially the US is the biggest beneficiary of globalization. US with 5% of world market sells to the other 95% for its own benefits. China is the largest market for many American companies such as GM, Caterpillar,Boeing etc. Millions will lose jobs if these companies cannot sell in China or ROW. You think America will prosper selling to just 5% of world market? Please educate yourself.
1
Contemplating the disintegration of the European Union may be akin to suicide. So, it must persevere, but with the proviso that each and all folks within feel integrated, and listened to, and where social inequality is tackled for the benefit of those 'disemboweled' by a globalized economy where disenfranchisement is not their fault. Perhaps Macron must start at community's level, establish participation and contribution once the shortcomings are addressed. Only when justice is done, especially economic, can we have social peace. Besides, it's the right thing to do.
1
To me the underlying issue is the low rates unleashed by the financial crises by monetary experts guided solely by markets. Trillions of dollars have gone to prop up the lives of too few people and disenfranchised large swathe of voters who contributed to the well being in the first place and are earning record low returns on their savings and pensions. Having been an Investment Banker all my life what really amazed me was that the liquidity that the central banks unleashed had no specific use case - a spanking new metro in NY, New Airports across Europe, heavy investment in tourism facilities etc, would have evened it out. But what we got was asset price inflation in emerging economies ( stocks demonstrating 10% earnings growth being bid at 50x earnings), taper tantrums, paranoid short term focused money chasing existing assets at ridiculous prices and trade imbalances. Combined with the most aggressive evolution of technology this has caused unbelievable deflation in living in the middle job world - equivalent to largest voting block. The pendulum was pushed out so far on one side by the elite for their own short term prosperity that equilibrium will require it to swing hard and fast to the opposite. Hedge funds shutting down and Mass protests are just the start.
50
@Sandeep
"Having been an investment banker all my life" - YOU are one of those "elite" whose short term prosperity was all that mattered to the central bankers.
As a banker (presumably with some kind of economics degree) your "work" has pretty much destroyed the standard of living for the working classes (all workers, not just blue collar) in the western democracies. Your economic ideas about shedding low value industries to concentrate on new high value industries was disastrous to the blue collar working classes!
FYI, I don't really care about "record low returns on savings and pensions" because I don't have a pension of any kind (but I pay for yours!), and my savings at 57 years old amount to about 1/2 a years pay.
Wow, are you ever out of touch with the reality of the working middle classes (by the way I'm a highly skilled architectural professional).
I would have loved to be have been able to afford a house but they are not 2.5 or 3 times my income - they are 8 to 10 times my income! There are now NO JOBS anywhere where housing is affordable!
Globalization has been a disaster to the middle class in western countries and the levels of immigration (in Canada) have jacked the price of housing through the roof.
I'll be happy to see globalization die,
3
@Sandeep
Meritocracy was murdered in 2009 by way of low and lower interest rates. The casino operators on Wall Street and the failed banksters received he greatest welfare check in history. Retirees like my self who had seen figures in savings could actually be characterized as living below the poverty line by way of income and low rates of return on CD's and T-Bills.
@Matthew
US with 5% of global market will die if it doesn't get access to the other 95% of global market. US is the biggest beneficiary of globalization. But the issue is the the benefits of globalization goes to only the top1% while the rest are left with peanuts trickling down. THAT IS THE ISSUE NOT GLOBALIZATION ITSELF. Diagnose the problem properly because if not you will just cut your nose.
Come now, Mr. Friedman. France surrendered in WW II without a fight. Britain never gave up. Brexit is more than a symptom of what ails the EU. It was a warning shot that Macron ignored. France has never been the key to Europe, except for tourism and fine dining.
Making it easier to fire employees? Sounds like a plan to replace the middle class with low wage immigrant workers. The French middle class may have been born at night, but they weren’t born last night. They understand that globalists marginalize people like them.
Merkel and Germany looked out only for Merkel and Germany, not the EU. British voters recognized that fact and so too shall the rest of the EU.
25
@Conservative Democrat
Dear Demo, 1940 was almost 80 years ago. There were many reasons why France succumbed then and Britain didn't. I'm not sure than any of them apply to the situation today. The important thing is that the rivalry of empire building among European nations that led to World War I which led in turn to World War II no longer exists. With all its faults - and they are many - the EU offers a frame work for cooperation. By and large it has been successful, hence the same Russian effort to use fault lines to break us apart has been behind much that ails Europe. The connection between those who worked for Trump's election and those who promoted Brexit is well documented.
As far as employment law in France is concerned, it is presently so rigid that companies use temporary agencies for staff rather then hire them directly. I don't have to spell out the disadvantages of this situation for both employers and employees. As for replacing present employees with 'immigrant' low-wage employees, try telling that to French born young men and women of North African origin who are among the worst hit by unemployment.
5
@Regulareater
Your mention of those who promoted Brexit being well documented, prompted me to inform you, and others who may be unaware, that the consensus of the British cognoscenti who avidly follow the horror unfolding in Britain, is that this was a well planned Coup by those same Tory wealthy promoters you mentioned! A book detailing this is about to be released, according to Guardian very wise Brexit opponents that may create shock and awe for May and the whole benighted gang! We can only pray!
1
@Regulareater Exactly.
In both Europe and in the US, working class people are getting tired of our governments providing so much representation WITHOUT taxation towards the rich. This will not end well.
Neither here nor over there. The G5s are always on stand by.
26
What's really worrying is that all this discontent exists amid ostensibly strong economic conditions. When the next crisis hits, inequality and its societal tectonics will worsen. And the European Central Bank, which still hasn't normalized monetary policy since the last crisis, won't have much room to lower rates and ease the pain.
11
There is a myth being perpetuated about the 'high wage-middle skill' worker. I saw a neurologist for a 1 hour appointment and the invoice was $700.00. Some time later I had a tree pruned in my yard- 2 guys with certainly less training than the Doc-45 minutes and $650.00 later.
Trades are in such demand and one can be an employee, start your own shop or free lance. Yet Americans believe college, and the associated high loans are the path to the 'dream'.
Learn a skill. And be prepared to move. Don't be a victim.
189
@Rob
I agree with you 100%. The jobs that one could earn
somewhat of a living in such fields as retail and middle
management are going by the board. There is of course nothing wrong with college but in reality the future for many graduates will not be that bright. The so called "prestige" professions are also being changed by technology and out sourcing. There is a need to create more opportunities for high school graduates to learn skilled trades along with the necessary education needed to learn how to manage their own business.
College can be a wonderful experience enabling one to broaden their horizons. Graduating with a lot of debt is not a wonderful experience. There are ways to help lessen this but it will take a new administration
A work/ study program that will enable students to serve their community and receive tuition breaks
plus a sensible tax deduction for college tuition and related expenses such as meals and residence would also be of help. Sanders is calling for free college tuition . If nothing is done our country will be saddled with another generation that no matter how much they try will always be behind the economic 8 ball.
Struggling to pay off student loans will not help the economy to grow. It will though help to create many
angry frustrated citizens who cannot seem to get ahead. We still have to get through the Trump debacle & hopefully after the 2020 election progress can be made.
14
@Rob
Yes, but the tree-trimmer will only work when some random person demands it (which will not always be the case) while the neurologist is guaranteed his week hours of work and his monthly earnings.
Besides, the price in the $650.00 tree-trimmer includes everything, while the neurologist will also have, apart from his liquid earnings, healthcare, retirement etc.
15
@Rob Heck if the tree trimmers are properly insured work mans compensation gets about a third of their fee due to being a high risk trade. I'm sure the neurologist has high liability insurance also.
7
Tom writes: “In this world, highly centralized countries will fare much worse than decentralized ones.”
I don’t understand this when China is the most centralized country there is on the planet (maybe N. Korea?) and they are doing fine more than fine.
The problem as I see it is that all kinds of manufacturing, small scale to big, ran off to cheaper labor once all the border tariffs and controls were removed as part of the push for something called “globalization”, which was good for corporations, but not people or communities.
Just like Ross Perot warmed about jobs leaving the US for Mexico before NAFTA, a similar thing has happened to France and much of Western Europe. Germany has been more careful about letting manufacturing leave.
Plus rural areas are having a difficult time in all western nations. The NYT just has a piece about the American heartland slowly dying. No less this is occurring in France, Spain, and parts of Italy.
The real question for Mr. Friedman is: now that we’ve transferred every kind of manufacturing practically to low wage countries in Asia, what do all the people do that remain, and their kids? We can’t all have high skills, high wage jobs.
114
@J.D.
As a member of the local town council in a highly decentralized country, I have a good view om how local power helps. As an example: When we build a new building we require locally sourced wood to be used, and that proper wages are being paid. Although this may cost more initially, in the longer term this is more cost-effective due to higher tax returns.
Did you ever wonder why Volkswagen is still in business after dieselgate and more? Check who owns it.
Local power means local control over the money with a larger view than a single wallet.
21
@J.D. I must take issue with the statement that China is "doing fine more than fine". Have you seen pictures of Bejing? Pollution is so bad that everyone is wearing a mask and you can't see more than 50 or 100 yards on a bad day. They are drowning in their own pollution. And many are dreaming of their own automobile!
All this while peasants in rural China endure crushing poverty (watch the documentary "Three Sisters").
12
@J.D. Globalisation (which means: send all the low skilled manufacturing jobs to China while ignoring the unemployed left at home, or outright blaming them for their plight -- those dumb shoprats, drunk on the assembly line, deserved to lose their jobs, right?) was, for the midwest, quite a bit like jumping out of an airplane, and figuring that we would invent a parachute on the way down...we didn't.
8
Several thoughts come up here. First, we are LONG overdue for a reduction of the average workweek. This spreads around the jobs and results in a proper compensation for the portions of their lives that workers are giving up to their employers. Second, there is NOTHING inherent in manufacturing work that justifies a higher pay rate than for other work. The difference exists because manufacturing was unionized for a crucial period of time. Again, workers are giving up portions of their lives to employers. They should be paid properly for this. Tom's so-called "low pay, low skilled" jobs can be rewarded with the same higher pay that disappearing manufacturing jobs paid. That then restarts the virtuous cycle of economy.
Decentralization in France is probably a good idea. But some of Friedman's commentary sounds like HE is the President of Singapore. Reduction of taxes on the income of the wealthy is absolutely NOT a positive or beneficial move anywhere in the first world.
38
@Flaminia -- "First, we are LONG overdue for a reduction of the average workweek."
Yes, I agree. Worse, things are going in the other direction. What I've seen is routine overtime, and often a second job. There is also the unpaid work of electronic connections into home life.
9
What is happening in Europe is happening here, but at much faster pace. It is government for the rich, by the rich and of the rich. And, the very people who claim to have been left out voted for all of it.
Many on the right claim that Europe is collapsing under its bureaucratic weight, that they need more free enterprise to correct these inequalities. But it was free enterprise, capitalism, that caused these divisions.
Capitalism always seeks the lowest cost of production. That's how it works. Capitalism is driven by ever increasing profits. Capitalism, however, doesn't have any inherent mechanism to distribute those profits. Government does. That's what taxes do.
The US has been on a tax cutting binge for 40 years now and inequality has been steadily increasing. That's because the cuts have mostly been at the top end. The programs that would assist those that have been left behind have no funding.
Corporate America just bought back one trillion dollars of stock. That's where the Trump tax cut money went. This helped to push up stock prices but didn't get spent on the people.
Advancing technology will only make this problem even worse. The economy is run by big operations that must be located in big cities for the employment pool and infrastructure. Rural areas have no place in this system.
The nations of the West are going to have to provide more government jobs for rural areas or just pay people to stay home. We have a real problem here.
442
@Bruce Rozenblit
You summarized it well . We also have a race to the bottom ( among Western countries) on tax rates for the rich & ultra-rich . While people are living longer (AKA more pension costs ) & getting much more expensive healthcare.
Governments don’t have money to address the grievances of the “ Left Behind “ citizens . Maybe we need a transnational pact on increasing taxes for the rich people otherwise the problems will remain unaddressed due to budget limits.
16
@Bruce Rozenblit
EXCELLENT - I think you covered it all
16
Capitalism is not inherently profit-before-all-else, but that is what it has become. Capitalism even at its best, however, is not good at long-term thinking or solving multifaceted complex problems of large scale.
Unfortunately, it appears that the US Congress isn’t good at that either, largely because it is run by myopic billionaire Oligarchs.
18
I think Mr Friedman has made a great argument about the loss of high wage-low skill jobs as one of the major factors in unrest in capitalist countries, including EU and America. It shows one of the failings of capitalism as a system which in both settings, has unleashed a backlash. There are few remedies to aussage the middle class caught in this capitalist failing.
This article brings to mind the unique position of China as the EU and America struggle with poor or terrible leadership, unable to realistically understand where their countries are headed. China can avoid these long festering capitalist blunders if they continue to raise the status and aspirations of their middle class and bring more citizens up into the middle class. The technology revolution affects China in a different fashion from EU and America because the economic improvement in the last 40 years is a new thing for millions of Chinese persons.
In America, Trump is doing all the wrong things economically and the EU, while more competent, makes similar mistakes relative to their own cultural settings. As the reality of the inequity of citizens in America becomes totally understood and the depth of inequity becomes greater, citizens will make demands which the government cannot fulfil.
China will be in a better position by just carrying on as the global economy begins to show cracks. China can keep their citizens relatively happy and productive in that society.
4
@Pushkin -- Those "high wage-low skill jobs" are now being done for a couple of bucks a day by people living in horrible conditions, packed into "housing" like factory-farmed animals.
That is what globalization created.
13
@Pushkin
Happy Chinese Citizens?
Don't ask the Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities in China.
"China’s Detention Camps for Muslims Turn to Forced Labor"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html
1
How much does demographics play a role in this, especially with an aging population? The mean age in these European countries - UK, France, Italy and Germany is around 47or 48 years. With such an older population, their dependencies on pensions, healthcare and cheap transportation are probably reasons why there is such a visceral reaction to choices being made in France. It might also explain the emotional reactions that are being seen in the UK. Unless if there’s an injection of working age young people who are creating new or transforming the old economies, this aging population could be in for an even ruder awakening.
7
@YC
The problem is more human beings is a disaster to planet earth - both in terms of destroying habitat of living things besides people, and in terms of using up our natural resources. So we need to figure out how to live with a larger elderly population, sustainably.
1
This is the most incisive column Mr Friedman has ever written IMHO. I have lived and worked in various regions and countries in the US, Europe, and Asia over 60 years and wholeheartedly agree that the world order as we know it is at its inflection point. In steps China with Xi Jinping at its helm and Putin with his mischief.
There will be more and greater disruptions yet to come. Just wait and see.
19
@interested observer western leaders will arise over the next decade, now the scales are off the eyes...
@Michele Underhill
I wish to be as optimistic as you are but the current leading candidates for the US leadership in 2020 do not give me hope.
"The need for free-flowing borders to attract new talent and ideas, and the need to prevent people from feeling like strangers in their own homes."
These are mutually exclusive ideas. Trump won because of the latter. Brexit passed because of the latter. Merkel is in trouble because of the latter.
It doesn't matter what the author of this column thinks or anyone on this forum for that matter. The masses of the western world are becoming anti-immigration. No amount of think tanking or minimum wage hikes are going to change this.
89
@William I don't think Westerners are anti-immigration, we are anti-reckless immigration. The West, and the US, have always been selective in who immigrates here, and what they can contribute. Ellis Island was used more for deportations than people coming to this country. Immigrants are great, uncontrolled "just let them in immigration" hurts the natives.
5
@William
Spot on. If western leaders where to clamp down on immigration and migration you would never have had Trump, Brexit or the rising right in Europe. If they think it's bad now, just wait until the next economic crisis. Europe is lost. Hopefully we can save America.
1
People who criticize America's repudiation of some of its role as a global leader should reckon with the following facts:
1) The last successful major American occupations were of Germany and Japan at the end of WWII. The occupations of Vietnam, Iraq (as opposed to the liberation of Kuwait) and Afghanistan were abysmal failures.
2) America's leaders in the post-WWII period have sold Americans on spreading democracy in many countries where the effort failed at great expense in blood and money to America. For example, after 9/11 the Taliban government in Afghanistan was quickly toppled but replacing it with something better proved so far impossible. Ditto for Hussein' Iraq. When we retreated from South Vietnam, the newly unified Vietnam got in a border fight with China and today is doing just fine.
3) Some other post-WWII military interventions of the US have been strongly criticized as favoring American corporations at the expense of democratic principles by the same people now criticizing Americans weary of strong world involvement.
19
In addition to the list of "shocks" in the article that have affected so many people, add that the bill is coming due to address climate change.
The example of the guy who cannot afford to replace his van and has to drive everywhere illustrates why a national carbon tax is likely doomed. We need to promote and even subsidize clean energy and encourage conservation, not punish people for living a modest lifestyle.
35
Mr Friedman makes the right diagnostic but offers the wrong solution.
Mr Friedman is praising Mr Macron for doing in France what Ms Thatcher did in England 40 years ago. Poverty is growing in England while London is richer than never before.
But unlike British people, the French had a revolution.
Immigration is not the main issue here. France and England as colonial powers have always dealt with immigration mostly from their former colonies. The problem now is that the jobs that were there are gone. Outsourced to China and other cheap countries for the benefit of the Rich to whom Macron gave a Tax cut.
If there is an immigration problem, it's due in large parts to the immigrants coming from the Middle East ( wars that Mr Friedman supported and defended)
Friedman talks about this system as it it wasn't Man made. Anything that is done by men can be undone.
Unless we return to a Capitalism that put people before the GDP or Stock Market number, the System Mr Friedman talks about will not survive.
We have a simple choice if we want to save liberal democracy that has served the World so well.
Do we keep giving Rich people tax cuts so that they can buy their fifth house, third yacht or second private jet.
Or we live in a system where School Teachers get paid a decent salary, any person working 40 hours a week can live a decent life.
596
@Chaks
Your diagnosis is reasonably accurate but the solution is not. Money is no longer the currency, information is (if you doubt that, note Facebook).
The solution is not through taxes, a monetary approach, but through structural reform in information management.
1
@interested observer -- The currency is still money, and Facebook makes it by selling its unaware "customers" to its real customers.
What has changed is who makes the money.
69
@Mark Thomason
In engineering, there is something called the root analysis. You have identified the fruit but the true solution lies at the root of the problem. Otherwise, the solution is merely going to be a bandaid.
10
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
A fundamental problem in the EU is convincing people to hang together, really hang together, across national boundaries when pain (and success) are not evenly distributed.
And pain and success are never evenly distributed at a given point in time. National economies do not move in lockstep, mass immigration due to political instability, and soon climate change, will impact some countries more than others, etc. There are even different definitions of "pain" and "success" rooted in cultural differences and national identity.
What is the solution? I have no clue.
But "nimble cities, with the most nimble local leaders, who build adaptive coalitions of businesses, educators and social entrepreneurs" does not seem to address the fundamental problem of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
If Germany and France can't get on the same page as Italy to figure out acceptable fiscal budgets and monetary policy how will Berlin, Paris, and Rome at a city level? What would that even mean?
Even within nations, in the EU and the US, the successful "nimble" cities and the stagnant rural areas seem to be choosing to hang separately rather than hang together.
14
"In this world, highly centralized countries will fare much worse than decentralized ones"
Well, at least in the short run centralized countries fare much better than decentralized ones. Look at China.
7
@Reddy -- Germany and the Scandinavian countries are very centralized too. So is Japan, all the old Asian Tigers when at their strongest. So is Israel, totally.
Of course there are centralized countries doing poorly too, such as Russia and Mexico.
Centralized or not does not seem to be a meaningful dividing line for economic prospects. It is just Friedman's bias talking.
5
@Mark Thomason Germany? Centralised? There are not many western countries that are less centralised than germany.
2
Thomas’ opening paragraph is wrong, it was such – the liberal order that spread more freedom and prosperity – in the opening decades of the Post-war twentieth century but then the Gini coefficients began to rise and social order has become social disorder in spreading factions and prosperity fractured. The chaos in Paris as he notes has it counterparts widely spread with more to come. Disintegration of collectives seen in the Scots who want out of G.B., the Catalonians who want out of Spain, the division of Italy in to ‘the North’ and ‘the South’ and the common Urban – Rural fracturing most evident now in the USA. These are unsettled times and thoughtful leadership has not yet arrived. Expect more fractures, hope they drive sane solutions. Why not? We all have children.
6
The problem with the EU is that it embraced NeoLiberalism without the consent of citizens and the very concept is antithetical to the interests of consumers, those who work for wages, the environment and the poor. Macron was nothing but a Trojan horse for the NeoLiberal agenda.
Often opposition to global trade is represented as motivated by hate, or being poorly educated. The problem with NeoLiberalism is that such policies put working and increasingly middle class workers in advanced economies in direct competition for jobs with people in the developing world who often have no minimum wage, workplace safety or environmental laws. If such laws exist, they are largely ignored or unenforced. A race to the bottom.
The EU as it exists today is not democratic, does not represent the broad interest or desire of the citizens and has shown itself largely inept at dealing with the various challenges to the region. It has not proven itself able to help struggling countries during the financial crisis, during the ongoing illegal migration from Africa and Asia or shown itself able to deal with patently undemocratic governments in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.
The EU deserves to implode and be crushed under its own bureaucratic weight.
15
@David Gregory -- "embraced NeoLiberalism without the consent of citizens"
More precisely it misrepresented neoliberalism, broke promises, and lied for as long as possible about what was happening.
9
It's sad that the EU technocrats and elites are willing to sacrifice Europe's cultural and demographic heritage in the name of globalism and multiculturalism. They also seem tone deaf as they still advocate for accepting more migrants and economic global pacts despite the anti-establishment movements these political policies have created across Europe.
If current EU policy continues, the final result will be turning Europe into Eurabia. I wonder where the enlightened European elites will escape to once they ruined their own homeland?
67
@M. Gessbergwitz -- "turning Europe into Eurabia"
That is a fantasy born of fear and hatred.
The EU is 550 million people. There isn't 5% of that number of Arabs who could possibly emigrate to Europe.
France today has about 10% Muslims, but that is not Arabs. That is the colonials from its North African holdings who were entitled to and allowed "to remain in" Metropolitan France when it contracted and left Algeria and the like. They were not refugees. It was France that defined them as being French.
13
@Mark Thomason ditto Britain,
In its case the immigrants came predominantly from the former Caribbean and South Asian colonies; then from sub-Saharan Africa.
1
@M. Gessbergwitz - about all the immigrants and "arabs" brought to Europe -the first and dramatic reason was the wars waged in the Middle East by the US in 2003.
Saving people from bombs is more serious than the "caravans from Central America; both need to find solutions - don't Europe.
Yes, Mr. Friedman your prediction will come true: Europe will cease to exist. Just as much as your prediction about the Iraq war: Never-ending prosperity to the Middle East.
42
Thomas’ opening paragraph is wrong, it was such – the liberal order that spread more freedom and prosperity – in the opening decades of the twentieth century but then the Gini coefficients began to rise and social order has become social disorder in spreading factions and prosperity fractured.
The chaos in Paris as he notes has it counterparts widely spread with more to come. Disintegration of collectives seen in the Scots who want out of G.B., the Catalonians who want out of Spain, the division of Italy in to ‘the North’ and ‘the South’ and the common Urban – Rural fracturing most evident now in the USA. These are unsettled times and thoughtful leadership has not yet arrived. Expect more fractures, hope they drive sane solutions. Why not? We all have children.
3
Globalization has made life wonderful for some and cheap for others. It’s also brought death and despair. The world’s highest achievers are not necessarily immune to its misunderstood, insidious ways.
In the corporate world, the best don’t always succeed. Sometimes the less expensive fare better. Competition for MD residencies has become outrageous. Some like my son can handle 80+ hour weeks. But the suicide rate, the number of MD residents having car accidents due to exhaustion and the number of medical mistakes made by these worn out doctors is outrageous.
On the lower end of the economic scale here and in France overwhelming competition depresses one’s chance to earn a viable income.
Throughout history humans have migrated in one way or another. Whether by tribal or national warfare, steam ships from Europe or Jumbo jets from anywhere. It’s the nature of the beast and it’s the nature of the beast to wear a yellow vest, fight back, build a castle with a moat or erect a wall.
Europe will be Europe. The USA will be the USA. The flavor of our stews will change.
6
Macron’s France is like a modern-day version of the 1966 film, “Is Paris Burning?” Today’s Paris is occupied by the EU and it seems like the yellow-vested protesters are willing to burn it down to liberate it from EU control. Macron, a strong EU supporter, nonetheless has backtracked on some of his proposals that will surely bust France’s adherence to EU budget guidelines. His actions might save Paris from “burning” in the short term, but will he be able to keep France in the EU for the long haul? Brexit might provide an answer – if it succeeds, Paris will light up again; if it fails, France is in the EU forever.
2
Re: "The core challenge for both the U.S. and the E.U. is the same: These rapid accelerations in technology and globalization
Technology is NOT the core problem. Germany has almost twice as many robots per 10 000 than the US, and a flourishing manufacturing sector.
Thus the core problem can not be technology
So what is it?
In a global economy, with free trade (no tariffs), free movement of labour (including migration) and free movement of capital, wages for those exposed to it must fall to the global average.
That is roughly the current wage level of China.
Thus, what we are seeing in Europe, and in the US is the political consequences of the neo-liberal free trade model.
As Paul Volcker, recently noted in the NY Times
He "wondered how many lectures and presentations he had sat through with economists “telling us open markets are wonderful, everybody benefits from open markets.”
Eventually, someone in those lectures would always ask, “What about that poor manufacturer in my town?” But that concern was dismissed too easily, with talk of worker retraining or some other solution far easier said than done."
Correct
The neo liberal school, lead by Paul Krugman, still owes the workers left behind , a solution.
They are getting impatient.
234
@Woof
China with a large internal market will rise just like how the US rose at the expense of China with its plundered native american resources and free slave labor which decimated chinese economy. The US is only 5% of world market. China and India alone are 1/3 of world market. So we need access to their market to prosper. And as capitalists we know that those with the market controls the economics.
You are barking at the wrong tree. You can't stop the rise of China no matter what. It is their destiny. But we are giving too many tax cuts to the wealthy and that can be better spent in providing better education, healthcare and infrastructure to our citizens. This is the major failing of the USA.
8
@Woof
How did Germany achieve that?
With decent general education system and a social support system that does not leave people behind.
There is no way around the machines, the question is how the wealth these machines create gets distributed in a meaningful way.
10
@Woof, Germany does not leave people dangling like here in the US and telling them they are on their own. They have a tax rate as high as 45% in addition to a 19% VAT .
6
Nice recap of the situation, but as every writer, Friedman fails to explain exactly why it is a good thing to hold the European Union together.
For example, why was it a "bad thing" to keep the Soviet Union together and a good thing to let the countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc) be independent?
Why is it not better to have the UK, Germany, Italy and France be out of the EU?
Is being out of the EU hurting Switzerland or Norway?
17
@Baron95
I think the EU has been a great force for stability, democracy and human rights, especially in Eastern Europe. It's much harder for small countries without much tradition of democracy stray in human rights abuses when they belong to the EU.
3
@Baron95 The good thing about keeping the EU together? Maybe that it brought 70 years of peace to a continent that has been in a constant war for centuries?
Switzerland and Norway both have a very tight connection to the EU by the way. They even take over a lot of rules and regulations, without having a vote in the EU. That is why they are doing well. Plus, swiss banks make a lot of money with european tax evasion.
3
@Mark B
"The good thing about keeping the EU together? Maybe that it brought 70 years of peace to a continent that has been in a constant war for centuries?"
So, was it the EU, which in its present (expanded and tightly integrated) form only existed for ~15 years out of those 70 years, that kept the peace?
Or was it NATO?
Or the presence of US troops and bases in Europe continuously?
Or was it the common adversary in the Soviet Union and Warsaw pact nations?
Or was it the fact that Europe was finally allowed to end the empires and revert back to independent nation states?
You see. You can't just make assertions like EU = good or EU = peace, without explaining how/why.
3
I suspect that when the autopsy is done after the death of the EU, we will find that Russian disinformation campaigns played a much larger role than anyone expected. We are learning, oh so slowly, that Russian disinformation was far more intrusive in the US than anyone imagined just a year ago, and it's likely the same is true for most of the western democracies, especially the EU. No doubt Putin is rather pleased with all the chaos he has caused with the expenditure of so little energy or money.
208
@Stubborn Facts
Asymmetric warfare. Democracy as we know it has weaknesses and limits.
8
@Stubborn Facts -- Putin is under your bed. Don't sleep there tonight.
22
@Stubborn Facts The more salient fact is that disinformation has fallen on receptive ears. We need to address why people are inclined to believe it. We need to address the rage and powerlessness most working class people feel.
20
Europe today, the problems of France, Germany, Italy, England?
It hardly takes a piece of intelligence to observe that what we are witnessing is the classic, routine, easily predicted breakup of left wing society. Politics since WW2 has held that far right phenomenons are too dangerous, but in keeping far right politics at bay there has never been a surefire method of not slipping too far into left wing politics with its attendant problems.
After WW2 primarily the Soviet Union provided a gauge of left wing politics gone too far, but still the U.S. and Europe leaned ever leftward. Then the Soviet Union broke up, as should have been expected in classic over stretching of left wing politics, but still the U.S. and Europe have continued leftward and now we are witnessing the classic break up of left wing politics in Europe, a Soviet Union collapse in slow motion, and it hardly takes a genius to see that the U.S. is far from being on certain footing in all its left wing hullabaloo.
Naturally with the left wings in both Europe and the U.S. on the ropes, so to speak, they will do anything to control the situation, to keep striving leftward no matter how much censorship it takes, as if with just a little more effort they can avoid illustrious names like Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, and all the rest of the left wing "successes".
This is not to say I endorse right wings not to mention the far right. Just to observe we are far from philosopher kings.
5
Ah yes, it’s all the straw man “left wing” that’s at fault. Surely it can’t be the globalized markets, robots, and the dismantling of organized labor. Can’t be the tide of migrations caused by climate change and the destabilization of the Middle East. No, no. It’s that the poor and disenfranchised have had it too well. Europe most certainly needs a far right revolution. Cause that worked out so well in the 1920s and 1930s.
148
@Daniel12Since when is the KGB, propaganda, death squads, no freedom of the press, guilty before proven innocent, feudalism, police state, etc. far "left-wing" politics? The USSR was a disaster and eventually collapsed. Social democracy is not authoritarianism. Just like paying taxes is not evil--evading taxes, and wasting them is illegal. Mass illegal immigration, civil and religious wars, starvation, drought, dictatorships are all the direct result of climate change. When a place becomes inhabitable and inhuman--people will leave in droves.
1
"Disconnecting in a connected world is nuts." This is as succinct and illuminating as it gets regarding the wealthy's effort to divide and conquer everyone else, individuals and entire countries alike. The wealthy gather like the pack animals they are in their executive suites and clubs to preach relentless individualism to the masses: no unity, no teamwork, no cooperation, no "E pluribus unum," no organization, no empathy, and of course no unions.
139
@Long Memory
Understand now why the tech titans restrict it for their own kids?
3
@Long Memory. This is a great comment. Long Memory gets it just right. Ayn Rand-ish "individualism" is a false flag.
7
As the book titled the End of Europe made clear, the "end of Europe" as we all think of it now (a post-WW2 and post-fall of Soviet domination entity) doesn't really mean the actual fall of Europe, just the sort of internecine squabbling, failure to remain united, and failure of liberal democracies to inspire faith among its various people.
Who stands too benefit? Putin's Russia, for one.
The sorry state of "leadership" among European nations is a strong factor too -- take a look at the situation in the UK, Germany, Italy. Demagoguery replaces leadership and effective, qualified leaders are chucking it in, in frustration.
And we have a so-called president who cheers *against* the Euro Union and NATO, the only president too *ever* do so! And we know whose bidding Trump is doing!
All that said, I find it extremely troubling that the writer blithely touts as "structural fixes that foster growth" measures like "reduced pensions" for railway workers, "relaxed labor rules" to make it easier to fire workers.
Austerity 101!
How about some reform to reign in kleptocracy run amok, international businesses with more power than governments, and the ability of companies like Goldman to sell nations on bogus borrowing with ruinous, destabilizing consequences?
Fluffery about "growth" that attacks the standard of living of the "little people" as THE problem is a huge part of the Euro problem! That's why people are angry and the "jaune vests" are in the streets!
39
It is extraordinary that even now that the revolution is upon us nobody appears ready to finger point at the demented tax system that created the global elite - taxation of only capital based income is the answer but the huge trick is to sell and deliver it
61
Italy presents a little bit more of a problem then even you acknowledge. It is the fourth largest sovereign debtor in the world, the US and Japan being 1,2. But Italy's economy is much smaller than the US or Japan, yet its debt is nearly $3 trillion. When the EU bailed out Greece and Portugal, which was a heavy lift, the total amount needed was about $500 million. The naked truth is that there is no way for the EU, losing the UK and losing France's stability, to bail out Italy. A default by Italy could start a financial catastrophe like the 2007 to 2009 catastrophe which started in the US banking sytem.
So you can muse about Brexit and France, but true creative thinking power needs to be brought to bear if we are to help solve Italy's nearly unsolvable debt problem. I wouldn't worry too much about Russia taking advantage of Italy, as Italy's economy and debt are much larger than Russia's.
40
@James Ricciardi Fortunately the EU leadership belatedly understands this. That's why they are holding firm against the Brexit illusion: Italy goes next.
But the day after Remain wins, they must be prepared with a set of measures to mitigate the impact of open borders on the UK. With its open economy and a globally-spoken language, one country should and cannot absorb all of the EU's restless seekers.
5
@James Ricciardi said "... if we are to help solve Italy's nearly unsolvable debt problem."
Advice: The US should stay out. Trump has destroyed US credibility.
3
It’s my understanding that most of Italy’s government debt is owned by its citizens, not external institutions (i.e. foreign mutual funds, pension funds, etc.) - which may make the size more manageable ...
2
Ah Mr Friedman ... it wasn't so long ago that you were an enthusiastic advocate of the hyper globalization that has resulted in the unhappiness and discontent that you now so aptly describe. Maybe the protestors in Europe and the U.S. have a point in their belief that political and media elites were and are out of touch.
375
@BD....right, his book was 'The World is Flat'.
What's flat are our salaries and economic moblity.
Those who write such books are well paid with excellent health insurance and retirement benefits.
16
@BD and increasingly our "elites" are nothing more than children of privilege themselves, self-dealing in a system designed to perpetuate their undeserved economic advantages.
20
Is it time to seriously consider annual guaranteed distributions of income to all citizens while efforts to reeducate and retrain are initiated?
14
I welcome the 21st century with great optimism now 18 short years later realize the 21st century will probably be worse than the 20th when it comes to death and suffering, America failed, maybe Europe can show us the way forward. So far I am not optimistic.
5
Leaders should be asking themselves: In a world where the machines do all the work and are owned by the top 1%, what must government do to maintain a stable society?
The obvious answer is a lot of taxation of that rich group and the corporations and in some cases nationalization of certain industries, so all wealth flows to the people rather than that top 1% group.
Policies that cut taxes on the rich and corporations (essentially extensions of the rich) should prompt a strong backlash.
650
@David Doney
Yes, David, but that solution must be implemented faster than returning to progressive taxation can achieve.
Only ‘Wealth Reform’ can provide, as Alka Seltzer provides, “Fast, Fast, Fast Relief”.
Oh, BTW, that mountain of wealth that the UHNWIs and their corporations and banks provide them with is NOT what economists call ‘Surplus Value’ — it’s just the unjust rewards of faux-profit pumping that is produced by the ‘creatively destructive’ scams of dumping massive levels of ‘negative externality costs’ onto our country, our children, our environment, and our fragile little world.
The projected story only gets better if we can expunge or non-violently ‘excise’ this disguised global capitalist Empire and replace it with global democracy.
39
@David Doney Yes, indeed, and what Macron did, besides raise taxes that affected the working class, was eliminate taxes that affected the 1%. That's what is, in the eyes of many voters, unforgivable.
Progressive taxation, however, will also need to be accompanied by even tougher measures: breaking up the large financial insitutions that are eating up so much wealth on the grounds that they're 'too big to fail' ; and JAIL TERMS for white-collar criminals playing masters of the universe at Macron's old employer, Goldman Sachs.
57
@David Doney
Revolution. by the people, for the people, we are the work shirts and boots. Start marching with a plan. Many are judging Avenatti style as crude. Yet, Beto's BILLIONS they accept as OK, glazed over with hushed fraud real estate deals and cheering as if we were at the final quarter of the big game. We are.
Judge all greed concealed with a veil of truth, there is not much time, soon the veil will be lifted to reveal a third world country, our beloved Country.
9
Unfortunately, I think we'll need more than just nimble cities with nimble local leaders to head off the economic dislocation that will result from AI and automation. Even highly skilled jobs will begin to disappear. Computers can spot cancerous tumors much better than many radiologists can these days. So much for years of education and training. This is occurring in other fields as well as this trend accelerates. Education and training are needed but they are merely stop gap measures - fingers in the dike. An entirely new economic system will need to be created and I don't envision such a system being created in time to avert massive social and political upheaval. There is far too much denial and resistance to change by all kinds of interest groups. Perhaps the world is moving too fast for humans to keep up any longer. That is, it looks as if events are beginning to spin out of control or, rather, beyond the control of fallible homo sapiens. I don't know. What do some others think out there?
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@Sisyphus Happy
In one word, chaos. Social systems are the slowest and last to adapt. And it is not likely to come from micro minded municipal officials who are beholden to local interests.
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@Sisyphus Happy -- "Nimble cities" surrounded by what? That sounds like the formula of a villa in a desert.
Leave behind countries, focus on a couple of rich cities, and voila, you've got Friedman's concept.
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@Sisyphus Happy,
Homo sapiens has NEVER been in control.
Therefore, things aren't out of control. In our world, change is the eternal truth.
The first thought that crossed my mind was Mark Twain's "the art of prediction is rather difficult, in special in regard to the future".
Of course the EU construct and globalization have increased complexity and challenges to be addressed. But those are to be manage and not despair over or jump at rushed conclusions...
I cannot but believe that EU is a handsome and natural development for a continent that has known centuries of warfare and great life loses. That alone is a great achievement. Peace amongst nations, no borders, a common market, new sustainable technologies, better health, longer life span...
EU is the best that Europe has ever been!, minus economic glitches, political hiccups and cultural strife...
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@Nicholas
If the EU stopped immigration from Africa and the Mideast, the situation in Europe could well stabilize. EU countries already have by and large high unemployment rates, much higher than the US. Letting in large numbers of immigrants and refugees each year into the EU only makes the situation worse.
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