Biology is destiny for the fate of any and all human race "open societies." Open as compared to what, who, when, why and where? Neither slave nor Jim Crow America nor apartheid South Africa nor Zionist Israel were/are "open societies" for every human being under their dominion.
The one and only biological genetic DNA evolutionary fit human race species began in Africa 300,000+ years ago. We are primate African apes driven to crave fat, salt, sugar, water, habitat, sex and kin by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
Having more stuff than your fellows is not very moral, fair, just nor inspiring nor enduring as the meaning and purpose of life. You can't take it with you. Life is much more profound than socioeconomics, politics and history. Inequality breeds resentments across natural human characteristics such as gender, color aka race and ethnicity and unnatural ones like nationality, faith, politics and economics.
Humble humane empathy aka The Golden Rule is the only path to the ultimate human fair just moral virtuous destination.
38
I worked in socialist Poland in 1974-75. I saw the misery, the inefficiency, the corruption, and the suppression of fundamental human rights that characterized life in Eastern Europe at the time. But people could walk wherever they wanted without being afraid of being shot. I had grown up in the northeast part of the District of Columbia. There are areas in Washington now that are so dangerous that the police, ambulances and fire brigades refuse to go there.
When I was twenty years old my mother told me that I could never buy health insurance in the United States because a psychiatrist had driven me insane by trying to cure my homosexuality. No system and no country is perfect. What we should remember about socialism in Europe is that it was an attempt to correct the injustices and absurdities of capitalism. America's biggest problems, the lack of socialized medicine, the ubiquity of firearms and its illegal neocolonial wars can all be solved within the capitalist system if Americans have the intelligence necessary to do so. But they probably do not, and America's collapse will continue unabated. We just hope that the USA does not drag the rest of the world with it into its increasingly horrendous horrors.
You can read my story in my book What Rough Beast, by Robert Dole, published by Austin Macauley in London last year.
52
This article mirrors my own take on today's predicament more than any I have read for a long time. We in the United States, as well as others in the developed world, must heed the lessons of inclusion and equality outlined by the author, and not allow despair and malaise to overtake untold millions of people.
But for me the most telling argument revealing the failure of our society to grapple effectively with change is the state of primary & secondary education (I would include our colleges on a general basis, but the 'elite' institutions are protected by their highly-selected scions- they are truly islands in the 'swamp'). We have robbed our future generations of a viable path to a successful and productive life.
On the one hand there has been a dumbing-down & narrowing of curriculum, on the other a failure to prepare youth for the technological challenges of today- and I do not buy the argument that many Americans are just too stupid or lazy to succeed today. We have reaped that whirlwind already, with an unsatisfying, low-paying 'service' economy, which allows for only subsistence existence, sucking in a majority of our youth amid the torrid pace and breadth of the digital age.
Let use hope it is not already too late for us to reverse this worrisome tide.
24
"...that made millions of Americans impervious to his lewd vulgarity."
Because those millions were already lewd and vulgar. They see the world, they see "others" thru their lewd and vulgar lens. Trump has long been one of them. In that he did not have far to stretch. No need to go into character. His old man bought him that suit a long time ago, been wearing it ever since.
The "forgotten" Trump and his ilk are worried about are those who desire to be ruled by an elite class. Oh they make a lot of noise about the elites they dont like, the Liberal elites. But authoritarian elites, those they love. Because they believe that they - the forgotten - wont be swept up when the Elites come for them.
When the despotic Elites, like Trump and his minions, disrupt and destroy institutions and traditions, rollback regulations meant to protect people, places, thoughts and personal choices - claiming it makes us greater - all of us suffer. There are no favored classes, unless you've already reached the elite class.
Trumps zealots fail to grasp that the destruction he and others do, to the Establishment, will come back and bite them as severely as the "others" they see thru their vulgar and lewd lenses.
Despotic Elites favor no one but themselves and a few of their own. And if you read the great tragedies, you know they'll eat their own as well. Maybe more quickly...
23
The salient part of this article correctly points out that these global companies can scour the world for poor people to make stuff in order to avoid paying respectable wages to everyone else. The entire world has become a perpetual, rotating sweat shop. Rather than migrating for food, these people simply migrate for money. I don't see why NATO doesn't open its eyes and recongnize these companies for what they are: global plantations.
56
Corporations have loyalty to shareholders, as the article says, to maximize profitability. They have no loyalty to governments. Apple manufactures its iPhones in China, doesn't pay its own employees particularly well, and sets up shell entities in other countries to avoid taxes. It's bringing back billions of dollars now solely because it's getting a huge tax break to do so. Will it manufacture its products in the U.S.?
Has Trump even spotlighted Apple's behavior? Has he stopped other manufacturers moving plants to Mexico?
While Trump may TALK about corporate selfishness for his political and personal aggrandizement, there is little evidence that he will, to use an expression, put his money where his mouth is.
23
Before speaking of "the victory of open systems over the Soviet imperium" perhaps Mr. Cohen ought to wait and see what develops with the ongoing DOJ/FBI revelations. The Strzok/Page texts are horrific on their face. And while Mueller did remove Strzok from the Trump inquiry, nevertheless it's looking more and more like Strzok may have played a major role in letting Hillary off the hook - unjustifiably so. Anyone who doubts this should read Andrew McCarthy's many articles on this specific subject. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor who writes for National Review. Of course if you're going to dismiss that publication because William F. Buckley Jr. opposed the 1965 Civil Rights Act - though he later admitted he was wrong in doing so - you must explain your support for Hillary, given her admiring words about former Ku Klux'er Senator Robert Byrd.
The other very serious issue as regards maintaining democratic ideals is the decline of journalism, seen most recently in the media's disinterest in and outright opposition to release of the Nunes memo. It was the Times which released the Pentagon Papers, to the horror of those who saw that act as jeopardizing national security. Perhaps media opponents who back DOJ's Boyd in opposing release of the Nunes memo - on those same nat'l security grounds - ought to ponder that irony.
13
Excellent thought-provoking article. You ticked off and explained a lot of salient points. We are a nation in a global society that is always just one click of the mouse away. We cannot afford xenophobia. We cannot afford the Trump reality show which is all that it is and stands for.
Trump Holdings are doing well on the international front and his jingoism of waving the flag is a personal affront to me as the man is no patriot. His love of Trump will never translate into love of country and despite his whining for a 20B wall he is no defender of our national security from attack.
I say he should build the wall using his personal funds and mounting his name in bright lights above it as in he should 'own it'. I agree with Biglari that we need a Marshall Plan for education and that was needed before Trump and now because of Trump.
12
1. American companies have become multi-national corporations that put their own priorities above our country’s by moving factories and capital abroad, where labor costs are low and environmental laws are ignored.
2. Undocumented migrants have moved into our country, enlarging the labor pool to the point where wages have fallen, in relation to other costs. Only 95% of the undocumented work in agriculture, according to the PEW Trust. The other 95% are filling jobs that Americans are desperate to have.
Automation, out-sourcing, and undocumented migrants have lowered the wages, and displaced tens of thousands of Americans in their prime working years.
13
Without vision, the people perish ....
....and apparently the visionless attempt to turn back the clock to a time in the past that never actually existed (e.g. delusions like "MAGA")....
A "Marshall Plan" for education is probably needed. But, in order to make it effective, the first step that is needed is a "Revisioning" of where we're headed/want to go as a human race. Then it would be possible to describe just what revitalized education might need to be ....
This op-ed provides a launching pad .... let the dialogue begin and continue!
9
Trump has forgotten that he campaigned to aid the forgotten. Actually he was just kidding. Or lying. Or he's crazy. At any rate, he's a greedy businessman who crafted a message to stuff his and his billionaire buddies' portfolios. The messaging of nativism strikes a chord, yes, but the motive is to enrich the worldwide consortium of oligarchs.
14
The only thing worse than modern open systems is everything else.
6
Ironically - or perhaps not - the author of this piece parrots "The Open Society and Its Enemies" - a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defence of the open society against its enemies," and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws.
What Popper clearly outlines is the failure of the great thinkers to deduce and predict a path for any liberal democracy and that by forcing it into narrow channels of 'correct' behavior, then we crush it.
The world is making mistakes every day now - guess what - it has always made mistakes - guess what part deux - they are SELF-CORRECTING - this too shall pass.
Meanwhile, according to the Economist magazine, in the past two decades more people have been lifted out of poverty than anytime in history -
The solution? Free Trade and Open Capitalism.
Not a solution? Massive foreign intervention, NGO's, and well-meaning liberals
3
For these and many other reasons it seems pretty clear that human beings are too short-sighted and too selfish to survive as a species and will take most of earth’s other creatures with them.
7
First, globalization is here to stay---whether the U.S. is a participant or not. As pointed out in this article, instead of focusing on how to adapt to the forces globalization sets off --- an outmoded educational system would be a good starting point---Trump and his followers are wasting time and money sticking their fingers in the globalization dike.
6
Uncertainty scares this particular and peculiar primate, homo sapiens. So it seeks certainty and finds it, to some extent, in religion, tribalism, ethnicity and nationalism. Some of this can be good but more often it turns vicious. It might well kill us off before climate change.
6
Very insightful, thank you.
4
Roger Cohen succinctly lays out so much in this column, from the analysis of Trump's reality show presidency to the description of the reason, the "desperate, atomized circumstances that surround and spread them." The wall falls, yes umemployment is down, but irrationality pervades all. And Cohen points out the solution, education to respond to technological disruption, will take investment. Money. Bucks. Not for the .01 percent in this country, but for those hwere. It appears we are more similar to those countries behind the Iron Curtain who were thrown in the capitalist world and flailed and failed. Looking at the forgotten, yes, Cohen says, forget about it.
3
Open systems of every type are continually under siege. That is a universal given.
Take the internet as an example; what started as an open communication platform has been monitized and weaponized into something that governments have to manage before it overturns their elections. Low hanging fruit always gets plucked first.
People all over the world are hungry and desperate. Some just need the necessities of life and maybe a few extras; others are servants of the will to power; they strive to have more than everyone else. Both types will swarm into an open space and bend it to their needs.
I thank the author for an astute analysis of the situation as it is now, and for showing us the current details of this universal truth: that anything worth having and left open will get taken.
6
I may be an outlier on this point, but I am not convinced that the recent backlash against open, liberal societies poses a serious threat to the long-term survival of the liberal, democratic order. I agree with Mr. Cohen's assessment of the current situation, but question whether this period will prove the undoing of liberalism.
The liberal system simply works too well for a majority of the population. By every measure, standards of living and quality of life for an increasing number of people have never been higher in human history. President Obama highlighted this fact often in throughout his presidency. I believe it would take a catastrophic economic downturn to seriously threaten the liberal order. The economic "losers" in our globalized world may strongly protest, but they are ultimately fighting against their own interests, even if they cannot see it.
The fundamental problem for opponents of liberalism is the lack of a credible alternative to the current system. The illiberal pseudo intellectuals (like Steve Bannon) who have seriously tried to come up with an alternative politico-economic system haven't produced much. At best, it is a hodge-podge of meaningless slogan and retreads of old, failed ideas (protectionism, isolationism, nativism, etc. )
I don't want to seem blasé about the danger and destruction Trump and his ilk pose to the world, but I think we need to step back and look at the bigger picture.
6
Regarding unemployment statistics, there's a gender gap. From 1950 -
2015, the % of US women who work has gone up, from 34% to 57%, whereas it has gone down for men, from 87% to 69.2% (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015).
Somebody needs to find out why (some) American men are seemingly reluctant to adapt and retool.
When my husband lost his job in the 2008 crash, we were grateful for my income, but he didn't give up. With only a HS education, he rebooted at age 54 as a legal videographer. It was hard, but he did it, and I could not be prouder of him!
8
Mr. Cohen, you had it backwards when you wrote "If we live today at an inflection point, it is because it’s impossible to say how much further rightist and illiberal authoritarianism may go." Instead, the question is how much further economic inequality and deprivation of the majority of humanity may go.
4
Advances in technology have not rendered distance irrelevant. Look no further than high speed trading for a poignant example. For something a little more day-to-day, consider any meeting you've ever scheduled. If you think coordinating schedules for a local conference is hard, try the same process across five different continents with five different time zones. Administrators deserve a raise. Material flows for production are even harder. Distance is definitely relevant.
On a more political level though, American liberals made a Faustian bargain with globalization. They abandoned labor in favor of corporate enterprise. Liberals drank too deeply of the Reagan wine. If only the pie is growing, everyone is better off. This in turn presumably advances liberal principles globally. They wanted to have things both ways. In doing so, liberal democracy surrendered to their own conqueror. Liberals failed in the most epic fashion.
I disagree that Trump intuited American cultural despair though. I still doubt he even understands the vein. Trump just parrots whatever vitriol he finds and promises a magic solution. Bernie Sanders had a much better finger on the pulse of American sentiment. He was trying to direct the inerrant dissatisfaction in a positive direction. However, Sanders was shutout by the same establishment that wholeheartedly embraced globalization in the first place and with so little understanding. We all suffer as a result.
8
A nation at peace with itself has plenty of room for growth, sets a welcome mat out for refugees and is not bothered by diversity. A nation at peace with itself does not tolerate leaving huge segments of its people behind while a tiny minority amass vast fortunes and live a privileged lives as prince lings.
In the In the 18th Century European aristocrats sent their "Waste People" to the Colonies. In the 21st Century they stay home, become angry, turn to drugs while blaming racial and religious minorities in their midst and foreigners for their misfortune. They become easy pickings for authoritarian demagogues and "Deplorables" for the elite.
Without greater economic justice for all its citizens there will be no stopping the lure of nationalism in countries that were once liberal democracies. We see it in the rise of the Right, My Country First, Border Walls and rejection of diversity.
6
Corporations have a narrow focus on a few issues, making money being primary. If the more complex world problems are addressed, corporations do fine in their chosen niches.
But corporations have not shown much interest in the world’s problems, and have no expertise. These problems are complex, many faceted, and seemingly irrelevant to corporate profitability. Solutions require expenditures with what appear as quite indirect and uncertain benefits to corporations.
Neglect of the big picture is short sighted, of course. Corporations do OK in the present context, but how will they do in a future world run by the wealthy 1/4% and a handful of cooperative puppet dictators? A world run by a patchwork of Oligarchies looks attractive to prospective oligarchs, but they are unused to the broader issues of government, alien to the corporate setting.
Inevitably, the big worry for the controlling 1/4% becomes stability of their comfortable arrangement. History is not encouraging on that score, but upset can take a while.
Tomorrow is another day, eh what?
7
Mr Cohen’s cogent statement is quite powerful. There may be some dispute with his underlying theme that international business and technology lies at the root of American xenophobia.
Looking at American history, there have been ethnocentrism throughout our history. Reflections on and treatment of the Native American goes beyond Dee Brown’s book—Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln held hostile views of them. Chinese were widely hated and Congress even passed laws about their immigration. This “Yellow Fear” manifested itself with greater passion in our behavior towards Japanese Americans in the 1940s. The Irish were not a welcome immigrant in the 1840s, and were considered a lower breed. Theodore Roosevelt was repelled by the influx of eastern and southern Europeans. And a 150 years plus has still not healed the scars of slavery nor altered the attitudes of many towards African Americans.
The discontent that Mr Trump tapped into may be just what Cohen proposes—international companies, technology, newly won political freedom, decline of American education, etc. But our history demonstrates that the xenophobia that is now so prevalent just may have far deeper reasons than we are willing to admit.
2
If constraints were put on multinational companies so that they couldn't so easily, in Cohen's words, "optimize globally" and "maximize profits across the world," perhaps then there wouldn't have been such a backlash against them and the system that they have profited from. This race to the bottom to find the absolute cheapest wage labor is not something to celebrate. To stop this, though, the nation must reassert itself. Those who favor this are "scapegoating" no one. They are reacting to real forces that have destroyed their lives. Under these circumstances, a "vafanculo generale," (an ""up yours to all of it") to borrow a phrase from the magnificent Italian rabblerouser Beppe Grillo, is most appropriate.
5
If the monied class paid their fair share and not lower rates than salaried workers then there would be funds for infrastructure, education and healthcare and growth for all
The ultra wealthy has hollowed out the US with their culture wars, tax breaks and greed. time to and the complacency and vote our interests. Better yet, vote in every election, every time
8
This is a very perceptive, if pessimistic, look into the future by Roger Cohen. The substitution of large, multinational corporations for the nations themselves has occurred, as he points out, and with that new role came the selfish, bottom-line lens through which corporations are designed to see the world.
Millions of American workers have been left behind, and Mr. Cohen is correct in assigning Donald Trump only a secondary role of recognizing the outrage of the workers cast aside by globalization and exploiting their anger, embellishing it with instinctive Trump racism and religious bias.
Democrats and traditional Republicans tended to put the blame on the bigotry of the undereducated Trump supporters, but mainstream Republicans now shamelessly ride the whirlwind.
The hopeful note offered by Roger Cohen is the possibility that education will save the new world order. To that thought we should add accountability.
In the cyclical swings from democracy to authoritarianism and back to democracy, holding would-be tyrants accountable is the secret.
That is where a brave and aggressively free press is essential.
4
Sensible immigration reform is needed. Draconian restrictions with suspect motives will benefit no one.
2
You're always going to have some people who are interested in government, and most people who are not. So when you vote, make sure you support the ones who lead a pursuit of happiness, not those who see getting born as the original sin that justifies punishment from the birth canal to the grave.
3
The parts I find astonishing and reprehensible is how so many in government ignored or didn't see the coming of Trump or the opioid crisis, or any of the other symptoms. And you are right, they are all symptoms and not causes. (Pray God, they didn't manufacture it this way, but the way it has been ignored by some, I wonder?) However, I think we have heard from the people --- they gave us the outsider, the wrong one, but. At least they are now in tune to the issues, and it's not hard to beat their logic.
1
It is iranic that in US, when Mr. Trump’s supporters talk about immigrantion problem they think their problem (job related problems) was caused by illegal immigrants or refugees mostly from Muslim countries. No, their problem was caused by Chinese and their cheap labor and huge export to the US. These Americans should accept the fact that they cannot have American dreams their fathers or grandfathers had. If they are not well educated, no matter where they live they will live like low class citizen of the world with its standard of living live. Not too long ago US produced 50% of world GNP, now 25% and declining. So in a globalized open ecnomy people will have the same standard of living no matter where they live. So American blue collar workers will have the same standard of living as say Chinese.
5
While reading this article, I wondered if the author has met an American who is working more hours and earning less than he or she did ten years ago while the corporate "leaders" who employ them are earning 40, 50 or 100 times more. Corporations don't open borders for any other reason than profit. They abuse workers world wide and support authotarian regimes that will allow slaves to be used and abused in their factories. The fact that a gentleman with brown sink now runs an avaricious corporation that preys on its most vulnerable customers is no advertisement for an open society...it is a warning that neither race, nor gender nor skin color nor national origin makes a human a progressive.
I do agree that the disease now consuming the USA is not Trump. He is a symptom. He is a symptom of out of control greed and the ability of big money to by legislators, priests, bishops and judges while workers languish and the protections are parents and grandparents worked for and died for are shredded before our eyes.
8
"imagined immigrant hordes"
Pretty sure they are not imagined. Millions have come to Europe already after Merkel impulsively invited them; millions more are waiting in Turkey, Libya, etc.
"International corporations have a different lens. They optimize globally, rather than nationally. Their aim is to maximize profits across the world — allocating cash where it is most beneficial, finding labor where it is cheapest — not to pursue some national interest."
They also exist only to benefit their shareholders. Nations exist to benefit all of their citizens--and unlike corporations, which are run only by their executives and directors, all citizens have a voice in how a nation is run.
"Biglari, by the way, was born in Iran. He came here as an immigrant in the 1970s. He went on to become vice chairman of Citicorp."
Nothing against Biglari personally. But why are we supposed to celebrate his taking a job that otherwise would have gone to an American? (Yes, he's American now, but that is because of a decision existing Americans made. How did that decision benefit them?)
7
Corps. now control the markets - even regulate the markets they are in on a global scale. Without a middle ground, corporations and profits will be the oppressor of individual liberty and freedom of entire nations in the near future. A middle road as demonstrated in Scandinavian countries seems to be a better way.
Companies are free to regulate themselves in a trumpian world order. They tell the government regulators - verbatim (via ALEC, etc) - the regulations they want, to pollute, to mar pristine areas, to quash smaller competitors, monopolize sectors, protect consumer abuse, buy politicians, avoid taxes, etc.
Democracies and real competition are bad for maximizing profit. The fossil fuel industry is the obvious example of that. They have exploited open societies instrumental to their start, growth and wealth to preserve their status, squelching competitive forces that don't benefit them.
I'm one of those discouraged workers. The NC state government, of and by businesses, forbids me from suing my boss who fired me after 22 years of profitable service to get away with stealing more than $80,000 in earnings he owed me. Why should I work making lots of money for another thief and pay income taxes to a government that only serves business interests and the greedy wealthy? My boss even calls Monaco home - a tax evader's haven. My taxes protect him!
Corporations are the neo-government, operating with impunity across borders and firewalls - even trump walls are no match.
6
Thank you for tackling this critical problem of those taking power from the people. I agree that Donald trump is a symptom, but I believe we have to look at that symptom a bit more closely to understand the problem's full scope. You wrote: "He intuited the extent of American anger better than anyone." I believe that Donald Trump was able to sense what angers many Americans because he and people like him participated wholly in causing that anger. Trump learned from his significant others that bravado, lies, misinformation, name calling, constant attack are tools of those who hunger for power. Yes, this is part of being human. But an alternative - liberalism, democracy, interdependence, spirituality - to the one master of all things, even an all powerful personal God, still has a chance, if we are clear and courageous in pursuing it.
2
I favor a social democratic republic. Democracy can't seem to survive on its own.
5
Mr Cohen's statement that Trump failed to mention the importance of education in addressing the plight of the "forgotten" is very significant. Whatever success the Republican Party has had in this country over the past three decades is due, in large part, to ignorance and greed. Greed, being the financial support that Republicans receive from wealthy corporations and donors in order to legislate policies that increase inequality. Ignorance, being the assumption that gun rights, racial purity, religion, and nationalism can replace education,science, and technology in order to resolve the issue of income inequality. Republicans understand very well that an educated society will see through the absurdity of their obsolete ideology, and condemn them to irrelevance. And Trump would become the most irrelevant of all.
4
The fact that Trump barely speaks for those consigned to oblivion by globalization is common knowledge to most. He is, indeed, a false savior to many who voted for him in 2016. Even so, if immigrants, legal and illegal, are scapegoated by reactionary forces, one must also bear in mind that immigration has been lionized by many proponents of globalization for less than altruistic reasons.
However much one laments Trump's characterization of Mexicans as "rapists", he was right to raise the issue of illegal immigration. Certainly Americans should ask themselves the following: why can't America's economy at present function without illegals? Many know the answer well, but prefer to remain reticent about it. The author is correct in stating that Trump didn't invent this problem, but cynically capitalized on the resentments spawned from this.
Unless people acknowledge the cause and effect between globalization and renewed virulent nationalism, open societies will be beseiged, and this will continue on unabated.
5
Sadly, we're so quick to blame the right, when most of the suppression of speech in liberal democracies commes from the Left. The "Fairness Doctrine" designed to silence Rush Limbaugh and AM Radio, our rampant "you can't say that" political correctness, violence against "objectionable speech", clamoring to tax the church, all of this is the left attacking free speech.
4
Interesting as always. I have to believe that the bloated international financial sector has something to do with it. Capital chasing itself in circles while creating nothing but wealth for the undeserving and resentment by the underclass is neither good nor sustainable.
4
When a Koch, a Mercer or an Adelman can use wealth to affect government policy, we are all threatened. Citizens United has turned out to be one of the worst threats to our democracy, one that the supreme court refuses to acknowledge or correct. We have a president whose daily attacks on our democratic institutions undermine democracy. We have a Congress that not only refuses to rein in the president authoritarian tendencies but fawns over and abets him. If the judicial ranch of government can no longer protect us, we are truly lost.
5
Roger Cohen hits the nail on the head. In the Detroit area, I cringe when people say "buy American" or if you buy an Asian branded car "where does the money go"? GM, Ford, and the like are not American companies. They are multinationals headquartered in the United States. When is everyone going to wake up to this?
6
Hundreds of millions lifted into the middle class depends on your definition of the middle class.
1
That Cohen says Bilgari is "not Trump's kind of guy" is flat out bizarre. A guy with the smarts to do Physics at Princeton and the energy and versatility to succeed in business is EXACTLY the kind of guy the the extreme far right wants. This guy was from an educated wealthy family. He did not float to the US on a raft. When right wingers say "merit based" immigration, what do you think they mean? There are lots of Iranian religious fanatics in Iran but not the ones wealthy and connected enough to make it to the US. Only about 35% of Iranian americans self identify as Muslim. About 30% are christian, jewish or other religions. Iranian Americans are one of the most successful immigrant groups because we got only the best.
6
Your analysis seems correct (and maybe even obvious), except I think by Trump you mean Bannon. Trump's populism left with Bannon; what remains is all the bad (racism, vulgarity, anti-intellectualism, authoriarianism) and none of the good (class solidarity, economic policies that help most people) in populism. Trump ran as a populist but governs in the same top-down class war style as previous Republican presidents, primarily because he is too weak as a president to resist the Republican Congress, which has been captured by the 0.01%. Sanders and Trump had much in common during the campaign, and their popularity stemmed from the same sources, but they have little in common now.
2
I’m neither an economist nor a political scientist, but it seems to me that the root of the problem with open societies is that capital will always be more open than people. Money faces no cultural or language barriers as it travels from country to country. People do. So when a US corporation moves jobs to China, workers cannot follow. Those are the losers Trump is talking about and rightly so.
.
A small first step to addressing this vexing problem could be to get the World Economic Forum out of the Swiss Alps and into the real world. Let it travel from depressed industrial city to depressed industrial city. It might start in Detroit. Then perhaps Manchester England. After that? Who knows. The point is that Davos is an elitist place, insulated from the real world problems that desperately need to be addressed by the World Economic Forum.
8
It does seem that, left to themselves, most societies drift to extremes of inequality. This was a true in ancient Rome, medieval Europe or Imperial Japan as it is today in many countries. In between there are periods where societies become more balanced in terms of wealth distribution and political power. This usually follows war, revolution or major economic collapse.
The only remedy to aristocracy, oligarchy or plutocracy is strong democratic and, perish the thought, left of centre or strongly centrist government. Government of the people, by the people and, above all, for the people as somebody once said.
17
Take a lesson from chaos theory: even if you don't know how exactly a system works, you can usually stabilize it with negative feedback.
1
Multi-national companies and technology may cause resentments that make it challenging to sustain an open society. Their successes, however, have made it impossible to sustain a closed one.
15
They can drown out anything with sheer volume of noise.
'Hundreds of millions of people in these developing countries were lifted from poverty into the middle class. Conversely, in Western societies, a hollowing out of the middle class began as manufacturing migrated, technological advances eliminated jobs and wages stagnated.'
Exactly - this is probably the main reason why many Americans favor immigration control/reform. Americans are hit with a double whammy, many good jobs have been offshored, and yet we have mass migration, both legal and illegal. This only suppresses wages of the remaining jobs in the US, blue collar and white collar alike, simple supply and demand. Factor in the AI and robotics that will chip away even further at the job market in the very near future, and you can easily see that America does not need more immigration!
Even Bernie Sanders favored immigration control for this exact reason, and immigration control was even part of the DNC platform as recently as 2008. Boy, what a policy flip-flop in only 10 years.
The majority of Americas have long wanted immigration control and reform, it took a candidate Trump to bring this front and center, and was the chief reason, for his upset election. (That and also retaining jobs in the US.) Those opposing immigration reform do not represent the majority of American citizens, only illegal residents. I imagine that it is also done to oppose Trump, even though immigration reform is favored by the American majority.
32
Just as with "tax reform" there is immigration reform a la Trump and there is enlightened immigration reform.
1
Immigration reform has been blocked by the GOP for decades.
One reads Philly and shakes one’s head. He says the answer to global competition is tighter American immigration law. That is surely bafflingly wrong. And marry that to his affection for trump, and you start to understand the wild successes of ye olde snake oil salesman. Blaming others for your lack of preparedness is a formula for continued failure. It’s like demanding that we ban cars so buggy whip production jobs can be protected. Which more or less is what trump is doing for coal. What happened to Yankee ingenuity? We used to know we are world beaters. With some retooling we can continue to be. But trump snake oil is not retooling.
1
When labor becomes too cheap to meter, ownership of the means of production is all that is left to live on.
16
I fear for the future for my grandchildren - because of how I see them addicted to social media while economic opportunities dwindle.
Maybe, western society is completing a move upwards with a spiral downwards. Both my parents had to drop out of school in the 1930s Great Depression to bring in family income. Yet, wanted all their children to attend and graduate from university. All did.
Despite what I now recognize was a lower middle class upbringing, I and my siblings had an enormous amount of high quality parental time - Time playing cards and outdoor games with my parents. Time reading with my mother.
We three siblings all graduated from university and prospered. I spent a decade in elected national political office where I reformed much of Canada's social programmes and financial regulation. For the 3 of us born in the early to mid 1940s and our spouses, "the sky was the limit" - including getting in at the start of the computer revolution in 1961.
All 3 of my daughters also graduated and are successful business women. There was no question in my mind that, as young women, their future would be a sex indifferent "equal opportunity" future.
I now watch the future of my grandchildren with apprehension. Their opportunities to prosper seem quite limited. The "offshoring" of good jobs restricts their opportunities. Social media addiction distracts them. Could xenophobia be their fate? More and more, that seems to be western societies' fate.
31
When I got married in the sixties, my wife was teaching at two universities in Boston as a teaching adjunct. Immediately after we married, she gave up her jobs and was a housewife and at home mother for the next 16 years. The children always had a mother to come home to and since housework did not occupy all her time, my wife also played the piano and wrote stories, some of which won prizes.
The lives of my daughter and daughter in law, both working, are far harder.
Do I resent the changes in the lives of women? Not really. Change happens. What is dangerous is when we label a change as "progress" and then refuse to ask, "but is it for the good?" It is good of course for the many women billionaires all over the world. But perhaps it is not equally good for women working in Walmart or taking care of other women's babies, when they would rather be at home taking care of their own.
Could it be that upper middle class white women have achieved their independence on the backs of poorer women of color?
19
At least it uses much less energy to bury oneself in computer games than jet around the world to various places to get one's bucket list punched.
1
Yep, and those grandchildren don't have their moms at home, reading, playing cards and games outside.
1
Interestingly, Cohen for his piece uses the term "open societies" rather than "democracies". It's a curious choice. Particularly, given the fact the economic and political evolution he he sets out over the past 30 or so years did not just affect the forner developing and communist countries. It also resulted in a situation where the US, if credible studies such as Princeton's Gilens Page 2014 study are to be believed, stands these days not as a democracy or even a republic but rather a "plutocracy". The public policy data used by Gilens Page only covered the period up to the earlier 2000s and since that time the US plutocracy and inequality post financial crisis have only become more entrenched and severe. So it has become a bit dicey to use the term democracy to describe the US among an educated crowd. However, it is entirely possible that a "plutocracy" can consider itself an "open society" operating under what they determine the correct social justice imperatives without acknowledging the necessity of a having a system open to the influence of - egads! - "populism" or "deplorables". This seems to be where the US is headed. An "open society" where oridnary ciitzens can get all the information they need on the latest sexual harassment cases, watch MME and the Kardashians, overdose on opiods and porn but just don't think you are going to have an influence on key financial orforeign policy decisions like constant war or bailing out the bankers. "Open societies" it is!
21
The enormous shift in tax policy favoring the rich has been a world-wide phenomena going on for many years. After the Socialist party candidate François Hollande won the presidential election, France enacted tax laws that gave France the most progressive tax system among the 20 largest industrial nations. However, the world-wide the tax systems have become so much less progressive in the past decades, that if the tax code that France has today were applied to France in 1969, France would have had the most regressive tax system among the 20 countries in 1969.
A major component of the shift of the tax burden from the rich onto the middle class involves the corporate income tax , whose incidence falls entirely on the owners of corporations. Corporate income taxes were 4% of GDP in 1969 and are now less than 1%.
.. Issues such as globalization, free trade, unionization, corporate outsourcing, minimum wage laws, single parents, problems with our education system and infrastructure can increase the income and wealth inequality. However, these are extremely minor when compared to the shift of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. It is the compounding year after year of the effect of the shift away from taxes on capital income such as dividends over time as the rich get proverbially richer which is the prime generator of inequality..."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1543642
21
Corporate taxes are paid by the consumers (of their products and services) and the owners of the corporations. This is true for all businesses. Since most commercial enterprises sell to the middle and upper middle classes these taxes on businesses be they corporate or other ownership entities are paid by the middle classes as a hidden tax.
3
Wes, I wonder if your statement is true. A tax on corporate profits means they must contribute 21% of their profit to the government. This doesn't mean they can automatically raise prices by that amount, since prices are constained by market forces. Even if they manage to raise prices, the added income is also subject to the tax.
The other part of your statement seems more accurate, that the tax is ultimately paid by the owners of the corporation. They get to keep 79% of whatever profit they make. This seems entirely appropriate to me, even as someone who owns stock, since corporations operate under the many benefits of tax-funded infrastructure.
2
The high point of Universalism (and with it Democracy’s advance) was at the second half of the Eighties when the noble Gorbachev opened and reformed the “Soviet imperium” through Glasnost and Perestroika; while still possessing a uncontested military dominance in the region, agreed to end Soviet’s rule in eastern Europe (which was liberated by the Red Army from the Nazis); and most important, ushered an unimaginable reduction in nuclear arms and saved humanity from the very real brink of Armageddon.
This moral-historical revolution was met by the “open systems”, first of all the U.S., initially with admiration and cooperation (by Reagan and G.H.W Bush) and from then on with abhorrent Western-Capitalist triumphalism; exploitation of the collapsing Russian economy (together with the insidious Oligarchs); and worst of all, the geopolitical despicable treachery of advancing NATO as far east as possible.
The raping of Gorbachev’s universalistic spirit by the combined forces of Capitalist triumphalism and internal Russian atavism is one of the major factors which turned globalization from a force for humanity’s overall advancement to mainly a global projection of the markets’ “animal spirit”. The winners are the centers of international commerce and high-technology; the losers are the peripheries which lack the qualifications and/or were marginalized by the storming globalization – and indeed in the West they’re counterattacking now, putting the centers under siege.
14
Liberal democracy was good only in the presence of its archenemy, communist countries.
4
"Far from ending history, liberalism triumphant engendered a reaction."
Mr. Cohen uses "liberalism" in the classic broad sense that refers to the free Western societies. That's fair, but when it comes to the relentless pressure (military, economic, and certainly moral, on Soviet totalitarian communism and the final victory one might say "liberalism, especially in its expression as social and political conservatism in the West", won the victory. I wonder if that qualification seems reasonable to Mr. Cohen in light of the long history of the ambivalence toward communism of the political "liberals" of the Western intelligentsia..
4
"“When [Puerto Ricans] are forgotten the [United States] becomes fractured. Only by hearing and responding to the voices of the [Puerto Ricans] can we create a bright future that is truly shared by all [Americans].”
Would only these have been Trump's words.
5
"Would only these have been Trump's words." If these had been Trump's words he would not be now the president. Trump represents America first. Help for Puerto Rico, for sure. It was after all a Republican Congress which authrized help for Puerto Rico which is twice as costly as Trump's wall.
What Trump said, which to you might be heresy, is "Americans first!"
"But Puerto Ricans are also Americans." Sort of yes and sort of no. When I went to Puerto Rico in the 80's people were extremely nice but hardly anyone spoke English.
4
When the Soviet Union fell, one pundit said something like, "Now comes the greatest threat to democracy: Capitalism."
And here we are.
19
The threat to Russia is NATO far more than capitalism.
When the USSR was dissolved, NATO should also have been dissolved.
But American triumphalism could not be stopped.
To be sure, the eastern European nations were rightly afraid. But they should have been reassured by a combination of western Europe AND Russia. "You are safe. Now let us work together."
1
And Ross Perot warned us about a "giant sucking sound" that would transfer the prosperity of Americans out of America and give it to the masters of cheap labor. Surprise, surprise; that's exactly what happened.
6
In their constant fervor to vilify Trump, justified or otherwise, progressive, liberals (you choose the name you prefer), refuse to understand that most Americans do not wish to end immigration, they want to control and manage it. They are against the current free for all such as that which is tormenting Europe, the result of which is chaos and destruction. America is great because it is the melting pot it began as, but ingredients can only be added to a pot in measured amounts or it overflows and is ruined.
21
In almost any system of human organisation, power over time becomes concentrated between relatively few. It is the same for all systems: the CEO’s and major shareholders of Capitalism, the War Lords of the Middle East, the chiefs of Africa, the czars of feudal Russia, Kings and Queens of the older fashion monarchies, the Kremlin Politburo powerbrokers, the Republican Guard hierarchy in Iran, the upper eschaleons of the religious organisation.
Why is this so? In comes back to the spectrum of humanity. Probably at least 90% of any community is not that highly motivated, and they are relatively passive in their involvement. That leaves 10% of the population whom are the movers and shakers. Of that 10% 7 out of 10 are driven by self interest and advancement, and probably 2 or 3 out of the 10 have altruism.
Things collapse when the 90% become feed up, and the economy either collapses, or there is revolution and a violent overthrow of the respective system.
4
"No matter that most Poles live unimaginably better, freer and more secure lives than they would have without Walesa's courage. What matters is the nation resurgent against imagined immigrant hordes and multilateral bureaucrats." My husband was born in Poland and we have visited several times in the last decade. Although the lives of most Poles have improved since the end of Communism many have to emigrate to a Western European country for work that pays a decent wage - England, France, Switzerland, Germany... His brother missed seeing his kids grow up in the 90's and 00's because he had to work out of the country. His grandfather has memories of the Nazis in Poland. When I asked him what was worse, life under the Nazis or the Communists, he didn't have to think about it. He said the Communists were far worse.
There is very little work for native Poles in Poland, so what kind of work would immigrants find in Poland? None. And Poland is not able or willing to hand out government benefits to immigrants, most of whom would be Muslim. Poland is still a very Catholic country. They don't want the character of their country to change and they have the right to decide that. Just as Americans do, although liberals and far-leftists strongly disagree.
13
And in the past, when Poles were refugees...they would have preferred that others say "we don't want to change the character of our country"? Or that gov'ts would have listened to those citizens that did say that?
If we are going to survive, we can't do so by ignoring the plight of others, if only because what goes around, comes around.
1
The simple truth is that America never HAS been an open society and we do not know whether open societies can exist outside the dreams of progressives.
3
This is precisely why America needs a leader with deep knowledge and vision and generosity of spirit. But the appeal to paranoia and racism that got Trump elected means that right wing voters will run screaming from a knowledgeable, visionary, generous leader--or, rather, whipped up by the Sean Hannitys of the world, will condemn such a leader as a threat to all that makes America great.
1
There is natural evolution, and there is manufactured (and largely imaginary in the Matrix sense) evolution.
The first would be harsh but good for humanity in the long run.
The latter will kill us, likely via our own hands and greedy ignorance.
1
Popper's open societies today?
We seem to be entering worldwide a politics of sheer physics, treating human beings as quantum particle/waves. Inevitable result of vast and increasing human population and desperate need to control people. Human beings, particles, must not cohere and fuse in forceful religious and/or nationalistic or business encroaching corporate masses (right wings), but the alternative, left wing politics, is to control the educational process, which is to say give credentials, power, to only those people who "get with the program", believe in a nurture over nature everybody is equal view, which is to say a view which takes people as quantum particles who are allowed to fluctuate in their sexuality, oscillate between male and female, and are allowed the wildest fashion and consumption of product statements, but must be constrained otherwise to quite narrow tasks and an overall society in which no one shows up anyone else, a world essentially along Asiatic lines, a controlled state in which individuals vibrate only according to overall plan.
Consider Germany of the past hundred years the model: No Hitlers, no failed artists and right wing phenomenons, but rather "successful" physicists, Merkels, successful bureaucratic management of particle/wave humanity, a complete decline and control of human language (spoken and written word) and emphasis on the technical, STEM fields, and "messiness" confined to sex and fashion changes in safety of own home.
8
The seeds of the destruction of the human race were planted well before our socio-economic systems began to go awry. A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. What else does one need to know?
3
I disagree with Mr. Cohen's premise that Mr. Trump is a "symptom, not a cause", which is why he may be harder to dislodged -- when the fact is Mr. Trump is a malignant cancer that must be dislodged, otherwise death of the patient, in this case the U.S., will result.
Within the short course of a year in office, this president has brought out the worst in humanity with his repeated acts and tweets of racial bigotry and animosity toward anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him.
And in doing so, he has managed to polarize and isolate a nation built on freedom and democracy, by casting it into the image of his own small-minded world.
In that regard, the only anger Donald Trump has "intuited", fed upon, and then taken full advantage of, is of the worst kind, because it ultimately involves pitting one race against the other -- and it's that kind of bigoted, nativist view that is behind his entire 'America First' campaign.
We are living in a new era, one where globalization and trans-Atlantic and Pacific trade is what makes the world go around.
Technology is now the deciding factor of how well a country can keep up and complete in the world market, or get left behind.
And the sooner Donald Trump realizes this, the better are our chances for this nation to survive.
32
The Times reports that 82% of the wealth gains of the trump stock market have accrued to 1% of the American people. So who is going to buy all the stuff and services that capitalism churns out?
6
Trump doesn’t control America through his intuitions. He doesn’t care about other people (voters), doesn’t imagine their struggles, and he is happy so long as his family profits by expanding their international networks of “friends” who launder money, and of fans, who make him feel bigly inflated. How does he attract fans? By preaching hatred and Whiteness. That trick he understands.
He’s a troubling blister, a bump we keep picking at. But he’s actually growing smaller day by day.
So. Who does control America?
Our state and national representatives, and the voters who elect them.
What could they, we, do to resist nationalism and racist illiberalism of the kind that empowers Trump and Kaczynski ?
Couple of ideas. 1) Reduce the shocking interest rates charged to American college students who take out loans for their education. 2) Fix our tax codes so that more resources are distributed to citizens who need them, and less money gets hosed to the Koch Brothers, The Trumps, and Paul Ryan. Fight for this. 3) Vote in November. 4) Dispatch a small battalion of journalists to investigate mean, nationalist lobbying organizations (see: NRA).
Are any of these solutions likely to be adopted? We’ll see. The nation is full of surprises. And talk. It does not equal TRUMP.
2
The siege of the open society is a result of the systemic application of science, the methods of psychology. Joe Jackson's Ä world on Fire, writing on the French Revolution:
The social psychologist Neil J. Smelser maintains in his classic Theory of Collective Behavior (1963) that crowd members are motivated by, and organize their actions around, "generalized hostile beliefs." . . . . if there was a generalized anger, it was that someone was benefiting from this hardship, and it had to be the rich--like Lavoisier. . . . According to Smelzer, individuals join a crowd with a preestablished set villains; as many more join up, a "group mind" grows. . . .
This is all clearly applicable to modern demagogues, the tea party and the alt.right. Their systematic attack on the open society makes use of the Internet, which allows the easy propagation of, I quote Jackson again, on Marat's propaganda:
. . . a palimpsest of truths, half-truths, and lies . . .
The problem is not lack of scientific knowledge, but rather the lack of knowledge of the scientific method, which makes the populace in an open society vulnerable to large-scale manipulation and deceit, as we can observe everyday. One must be aware of this possible manipulation.
By the way, I have missed in the NYT a mentioning of the hacking by the Dutch AIVD of Putin's hackers. That hacking seems to me real "news fit to print". It raises, in turn, interesting questions on the lack of reaction to the hacking of the hackers.
1
Liberals went along with the destruction of Socialism, the political movement of the working class. Then they are appalled when the workers succumb to the false promises of nationalists and fascists. What other alternative is left to them? Are not liberals themselves in part responsible for this situation?
10
You and your Soros-style amalgamation are the enemies. And yes, it did not have to be Trump; and it doesn't have to be him next either. The person matters not; the unswerving opposition to globalism is the holy grail. There will be no going back - not in this country anyway - unless fools wish to court violent reaction among millions. Even rhetoric that smacks of such will be sufficient cause. Come your party's 2020 theme, you'll realize it is yours that is the discredited position; that economic platform will make what you call "nativism" seem like a frat party.
2
Your movement is polling at 30%. Without Russian support, you're in a cul-de-sac of history.
3
Time to read Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy"
Mayors, replaced by Traders, who grow into Merchant Princes. It's an old repeating story. . .
3
Here in the USA, the irony is that Trump *is* the establishment, very much so. He simply masks it with a loud, potty mouthed megaphone. Give him full marks for low animal cunning.
Trump has played the populist card masterfully, but he is no populist. Steve Mnuchin, Gary Cohn and Wilber Ross can tell us that.
14
David Gregory,
Well said.
2
Isn’t Biglari’a Citicorp rather culpable in all this too?
5
The United States can't stop authoritarianism or fascism the world over, but we can resist them at home. Let's take no eventuality for granted and make every election count. Americans can't preach democracy for the world without practicing it.
Biglari said what we have come to notice -power in the world is aggregating in international companies, which are not citizens of any nation acting in national interest. The exception may be in China, where the combination of ownership, party membership, tradition, clan, and national interests are a tangled web.
But for democracies, the risk is just simple fascism - coalition of business interests and authoritarian government using nationalism, anti-immigrant fervor and the scapegoat du our to rally support for the state to aggregate authority. It is based on a deep rooted fear that somebody must be to blame for the increase in misery and somebody has to fix it.
But we cannot stuff the last 50 years back in a box. Communications are fast and cheap; shipping is cheap and efficient; huge new markets have opened; huge new labor forces are mobilized. Technology has replaced millions of jobs, and will replace millions more.
People who demand simple answers will look to an authoritarian Deus Ex Machina to find a solution and save them. But the complexity isn't fixable by fiat, and adding fascism - the mix of corporate, military and authoritarian power - ultimately advances the forces that people want fixed.
Biglar recommends education; but the primary defenders of freedom are education; a free press; open, free and fair elections; and trust in institutions to represent the people. Right now? All are severely weakened.
So we have no real weapons to fight with.
4
Anyone remember the old James Caan movie "Rollerball? ... several corporations rule the world ...
1
After reading Roger Cohen's article, ask yourself this question: What in this artcle is "fake news?" This president is an expert at running a "shell game." Sure the economy is booming. Sure big companies are giving bonuses. Sure unemployment is down!
He convinced 60 million people to believe in him as he tears at the very fabric of the nation. Years from now when people begin to look around for their soul without understanding where they have to look,
they won't understand that every time he blurts out "fake news" he's cutting off their "nose" to spite the face. We have lived for centuries buttressed by the "first amendment" of free speech, free press, free beliefs. The real calamity is that he has convinced them he believes in them when at every turn he only believes in himself. Where is the humility?
Millennials, your time is st hand. You are needed now!
3
Are Apple, Google, Amazon and others the The Dutch East India Company (VOC; Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie), of our Times?
The VOC in it’s day harnessed peoples, resources, territories and methods of distribution on a global scale.
That next Amazon HQ a territorial outpost to fly the flag of Bezos Inc?
3
The chain of events that culminated in my Dutch ancestors coming to the US resulted from a clever Swiss chemist's invention of a synthetic dye that produces the same color as natural indigo from Indonesian snails.
In other words, what Cohen is saying is that Trump is actually right.
It took Cohen 27 years to figure out what many people in the real world knew from the very beginning: destroying American communities at scale by sending middle class jobs by the millions to third-world countries and transferring the profits to shareholders will eventually result in the unraveling of the social fabric.
And so here we are.
Globalization has inflicted massive damage on democracy and capitalism. Both now face an existential threat.
And Management Consultants and companies like Citicorp were the root cause of the problem. They exported neoliberal MBA capitalism around the world as part of the Washington Consensus scam, so we have destabilized societies around the world.
As a result, the developed world is now entering the Age of Automation in a profoundly weakened state, and we will face monumental challenges in the coming decade that will test our humanity like never before.
In fact, the next decade will be the most challenging for the developed world since the 1930's. And right now, we're on a path to a cataclysm.
It's a pity Cohen wasn't paying attention earlier, when his eloquent voice could have been used to raise awareness and perhaps helped detour us away the edge of the abyss we now find ourselves at.
And, as noted, Trump identified the problem before all the "experts" did. But his solutions are dead wrong. If he doesn't figure this out, soon, a cataclysm is inevitable.
2
The trends you cite are not the result of leftist politics. They are the direct result of modern capitalism which maximizes efficiency and profitability on a global scale. The Republican Party stands on the side of capital vs labor, as it always has. Trump in the campaign appeared to take a different tack, more in line with actual workers. In office he has proved to be a Ryan-style corporatist, favoring policies which bolster the investment class, not the abandoned workers who voted for him.
5
In this insightful column, Mr. Cohen reminds us that change does not follow a linear path. The collapse of international communism offered the prospect of a new golden age of economic expansion and the spread of democracy. The lives of hundreds of millions of people have, in fact, vastly improved in recent decades, but the uneven pace of progress, combined with its disruptive effects, created a sense of malaise that has sparked a backlash even in the wealthiest countries.
Behind this unexpected development lies a dilemma to which Cohen briefly alludes. To millions of people in industrialized countries it appears that economic growth in the poorer nations of the world has been purchased at the price of their own standard of living. Jobs flee overseas in response to cheaper labor costs, leaving cityscapes pockmarked with closed factories. The fact that automation has stolen more jobs than foreign workers offers little solace to people whose future appears bleaker than their past.
Both democracy and capitalism thrive on optimism and languish in an environment marked by pessimism. Most people will accept sacrifices if they believe that their efforts will reward them with a higher standard of living in the future. By the same token, a general prosperity that benefits most citizens, rather than a tiny minority, will strengthen their attachment to community.
America has, at least temporarily, lost the capacity to expand the economic pie for all. Thus our polarization.
6
It is nice to see someone reflect upon Trump with a view that transcends his last tweat. This essay is in the tradition of Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat.” The challenges of the international economy are destabilizing. And political reactions borne of fear are no surprise. But the flat world is not going away and the nations that understand that and intelligently adapt to it will be the ones that will succeed in the end.
Where was Mr. Cohen when President Obama did all he could to reduce wealth disparity in the U. S.? Where was Mr. Cohen when President Obama improved the image of democracy throughout the world? The fact is that Mr. Cohen was a constant critic of Obama's supposed "weakness." In effect, he joined the chorus of those calling for a strong man. And look what happened.
People, for example Mr. Cohen, don't realize when they have it good. His constant attacks on Obama liberalism was part of the reason that democracy is on the decline, somewhat, in many parts of the world, including our country.
4
It’s not like Trump was the only candidate speaking to the frustrations and despair of poor and middle America in the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders credibly addressed education as a core existential issue, along with income inequality and universal healthcare. People have divergent opinions on the workability of his solutions, mostly based on where one stands on issues of taxation and redistribution of wealth, but he laid them out as solvable problems by pointing an unflinching finger at the corporate elite who were the ones who were responsible for forgetting “the forgotten man”.
Sanders’ unexpected popularity, as well as Trump’s should have been a wake up call to the “establishment”, but in the end it’s clear which side the multi-national corporate elite chose. It may be argued, ultimately that they won the election with the installation of Trump and Company, for he is, after all, their man.
5
from the article:
"Of course, when the “forgotten” is a refugee, forget about it. Or when the forgotten is a poor child who needs health care, or a woman who needs contraception, or an undocumented immigrant, forget about it. "
Looking beyond Trump, and looking at the Democratic Party and Progressives, I think that the Progressives do not forget the people listed in the above paragraph.
So much do they not forget, that the author of this editorial felt compelled to list them.
This article is about people who turn away from Progressives because they feel forgotten. Specifically, the people hurt by globalism and inequality were forgotten (as the article states.) The Progressives did not forget poor children, women, or immigrants, and that's good. They lost the election because they ignored inequality, and they may continue to lose elections if they keep with their current strategy.
4
That job of vice chairman of Citicorp could have gone to an American. Many are certainly qualified. You are just proving the point that immigrants do take jobs from Americans. Salaries aren't high enough and we have to fund education and health care for immigrants, when the middle class is already stretched and when we already have enough people in the country. That is why immigration needs to stop. The countries the immigrants are coming from have to solve their problems instead of sending people abroad to crowd and take resources and jobs in other countries.
6
Open societies works better than closed, but it is important to understand openness. Gandhi said the open society is like a house where all doors and windows are open so that breeze from all directions can flow through the house, but do not allow the wind to uproot you from your feet on the ground. The leaders of the countries to ensure this and liberal democracy failed on that - China ensured that. Alibaba can do business in America without restriction from US government, but Facebook and Google can not in China without agreeing to Chinese condition.The cheep money from West can go to India to start business but cheep labour from India can not flow to West to do service business. Playing field of Globalization is not uniform and this distorts the global trade and commerce. WTO was established by governments for about 6000 multinational companies but majority of workforce works on small and medium companies in a country. There is total mismatch of reality and the framework of globalization - the result is Trump. At least Trumpism forced the elites to think about the real issues. The globalization is unstoppable but it requires the change to confirm the reality.
1
You left out a critical part of the globalization process: the right-wing propaganda machine necessary to convince enough people to vote against their best economic interests. Somehow, Fox "News" has convinced a majority of people in a majority of mostly rural states that the Democratic Party is responsible for all their woes. It is projection on a grand scale.
Never mind the fact that the Republican Party is, and always has been, the party of big business. Never mind that they are the party of "free enterprise" and deregulation, that has allowed global corporate interests to run rampant.
Without political power, the corporatists could not have prevailed to the extent we see now. I am beginning to see the radical right as a cult, not unlike those of Jim Jones or David Koresh.
4
Unfortunately public education has become the enemy in the tax cut craze. As taxes are cut, less money for public education means fewer schools have the resources to maintain their curriculum at the level it was years ago. Each year brings more budget cuts, teacher layoffs and then, only the wealthy can afford private schools. The middle class disappears. The ladders to middle class status through education disappears. And what you have left is worse than a feudal society.
5
You have hit the “nail on the head” with this column. The educational system of the United States has not kept up with the ongoing worldwide technological shifts. Trump represents a nostalgia for the past that is not coming back.
1
An interesting quote appeared in our local newspaper this morning. It read simply "Putting people on pedestals is bad for everyone." It is amazing that such a simple declarative sentence can be so profound.
1
Lech Welesa was the leader of a free Polish labor union--Solidarnosc. That union, under his leadership, was instrumental in freeing Poland from Communism. It is historical fact that dictators attack free labor unions, because those unions give voice and power to ordinary working people. And it bears reminder that the GOP has been waging a decades long war against American unions. That attack has been amplified by Trump, an authoritarian wannabe. Americans who are serious about preserving our democracy should remember history, and do all they can to protect the American Labor Movement.
6
Globalization started sometimes during the cognitive revolution maybe 70000 years ago when humans started to trade, first with the neighboring tribe and fast forward globally with the beginning of the agricultural revolution. With each technological revolution globalization expanded and intensified. Of course it’s not a smooth process, but a disruptive one, that at any juncture produces winners and losers. People and movements have pushed back against globalization since it started. So we don’t deal with a new phenomenon. Typically they employ false narratives such as the “forgotten man” or “bureaucrats” in far away places being the victims and the perpetrators. Globalization does not kill jobs, in the contrary it has been a relentless machine of job creation and counteracts the actual destructive force: automatization. In the first decade of the new millennium 87% of jobs in the US were lost to machines and not to outsourcing. 800 million jobs are on the line world wide to be eliminated by technology until 2030. And as in the past the technological revolution will produce more higher skill jobs than it destroys. The question we don’t know yet, how long can our intellectual skills keep up with technology. With AI technology will have the tools to advance itself with minimal human input. The revolution might “eat its parents” one day.
2
" imagined immigrant hordes"
You do not need "hordes" All you need is 5% of the population who put their own interests above the interests of Poland, who do not identify with Poland (or America) and who can swing elections.
This has happened in America. From being peaceful immigrants looking for a better life, immigrants have become the Democrats' trump card. It is impossible these days to win an election without being "soft on illegal immigration." And that means that enforcement of our own laws is now politically impossible.
Most of us who study electoral theory know that elections do not represent "the people". They represent the "swing vote". What Trump did was to bring a different swing vote into play.
But ultimately we need electoral systems which do not represent swing votes but represent an overwhelming majority. How to achieve that is a difficult, mathematical, problem.
6
Do you realize this bias in conclusions, Mr Cohen ?
Yes, Trump is just a symptom, not a cause. Yes, it's about the little people, or rather the social coherence of the most of the society, where differences are pitted up against each other.
But no, refugees are not 'our' little people, and they are not part of the social coherence. They are not the main reason for the disintegration, but they are another stressing factor. Don't use an open society as an excuse not to maintain the little people at home. Nothing will get done, as long as the domestic base is in disarray.
And obviously you are not aware how people feel in countries like Poland, where citizen work just to maintain a living standard, that has become more flimsy day by day.
Or the US, where health care has become a luxury, not a claim. Where students are indebted for the rest for their life just for education. And why are so many people taking opioids ? Somehow this open society is even in objective matters not working out.
Figure out what is wrong with the little people at home, before you try to save your open society elsewhere.
8
I live in a liberal but barely diverse New England town of 3,000 year round residents, where each day the look of the people and the sounds and smells on the streets change naturally with the seasons.
People from anywhere in the world, belonging to any religion, identifying with any gender, are welcome in my town. But, we've never been tested. One immigrant family arriving next week from Somalia would be more than welcome here. Two, no problem at all. Three, ok. Four Somali families in a week would start to raise eyebrows. If ten Somali families sought refuge here next week, a town meeting would likely be called to discuss the "immigration question."
I'm pretty far left on immigration questions. I've driven tired people who spoke only Spanish from San Clemente (just north of the Camp Pendleton border control checkpoint) into Los Angeles and was happy to be compensated with only a thank you.
And I want my quaint small town to become more diverse. But I also want to see the change happen slowly. I want immigration, but I want it to be controlled. That's a form of nationalism that most everyone agrees with. Unfortunately, the politics of the left has yet to embrace this concept explicitly. This, I believe, is what's driving our politics rightward.
To maintain our open societies, liberals need to articulate support for closing our doors a bit more. If we don't, racist nationalists on the right will slam them shut instead.
6
Poland is the only country in Europe that has an American style football league. They have forty teams. There is no other sport that comes as close to combat and war than American football. Smash mouth football seems an appealing metaphor for our respective experiences.
Poland has a long history of being overrun by its neighbors, but they have survived. The US - has overrun most of the world with corporate capitalism and it is losing its identity. The people of both nations have endured a sort of collective, persistent blunt force trauma.
But, the science of CTE has shown that it doesn't matter how thick your skull is, because bone density can't prevent the cognitive/emotional brain damage that occurs when soft tissue bangs up against the equivalent of a cement wall. More and more evidence also point to the same damaging effects caused by childhood adversity. Whole countries can suffer the same harm if the conditions that breed this preventative injury aren't addressed.
The bouts of poor impulse control, explosive rage, irritability, paranoia, forgetfulness, delusions of persecution, grandiosity and projected blame that result makes it difficult to live with family members and neighbors without harming them also.
Hurt people, hurt people. This is how the hubris of our innate authoritarian dominance seeking, through whatever system of control and subjugation we may devise, leads us headlong into destruction. Economic and social democracy is the only solution.
44
Why can't we be like Norway with its "solvent" wealth fund, not stolen by their wealthy but held in reserve for the people--many of whom have good government jobs. There are so many jobs not being done in our country because the wealthy haven't been able to make a profit off of them (yet.) Think of sunny Florida and its lack of solar energy. And our inner cities that could be reclaimed and their inferior schools (just waiting to be monetized.)
Our democracy has been hijacked. Not just because congress is in sore need of campaign cash, but because corporations intend to exploit every bit of oil, gas and minerals on the planet (and keep the profits.) So instead of a sovreign wealth fund, we have Wall St. and Silicon Valley and tax "reform" and HUGE tax shelters.
Wake up and vote.
5
Two points:
1. Your example of the "unemployment rate" vs. the "employment rate" shows how economic statistics can mislead, or at least not tell the full story. But then you call Poland an "economic success story" -- based on what? The same kind of official statistics that you just demonstrated to be deceptive? The point of nationalism is, only Poles get to decide whether they are experiencing a "success story," and they get to decide it based on their lived experience.
2. "Imagined immigrant hordes"? Come on now. People may disagree about what constitutes a "horde," but do you really mean to suggest that Europe is not currently dealing with a large influx of immigrants, and all the economic and cultural issues that entails?
5
And again “behind the backs” of the majority of citizens, the likes of Paul Ryan are encouraging the takeover of our economy by forces driven by the thinking of James McGill Buchanan, the same economics that was behind Pinochet’s Chile. The same base that is now “flipping off” the establishment by way of trump* is not going to be very happy when all this becomes manifest and they are even worse off. 1860...indeed.
1
This is a nice try - but Cohen, as almost anyone would, fails to explain the history and state of the modern world in 2000 words. In most passages he is not "wrong" but is certainly absurdly incomplete. Some of his statements of "fact" are wrong. And his organization of supposedly supportive arguments and logic are convenient and veneer thin. He must have had a lot of other things going on thus week.
The world has not, as a matter of fact, become illiberal. Europe is presently the most liberal society ever and America is close behind despite Trump. Nationalism is a reality now as it was in the 90s when a few think tank academics speculated about the rise of global corporations - they have risen and things are much as they were when they were still just really large multinationals. If anything is new it's the name calling - for example, nationalism is not racism.
All in all, this is still another attempt by the establishment of public intellectuals to try to say "I can explain everything" when, in fact, it is that pseudo-intellectual elite that simply do not understand.
5
"For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction." Newton's third law of physics applies equally to human endeavours, it appears. After the Age of Enlightenment comes the Age of UnEnlightenment. After 500 years of Western civilization in the ascendant comes the collapse. These are the cycles of history. The trick for those who believe in liberalism and humanism is to survive long enough to ensure a revival.
"America's education system has failed to respond to technological disruption." America's education system K-12 has failed period. Miserably. Most Americans age 14-40 have one third the vocabulary of a 14 year old did in 1945. More than half of the population, excluding immigrants, can't read with comprehension as they don't have the general knowledge to understand words in context. The novel "Jane Eyre" is beyond their grasp. Tragedy, really. We've allowed the game generation to be created. Let's play is the guiding philosophy. Award them good grades to keep their self esteem up.
1
" America’s education system has failed to respond to technological disruption. "
No matter which side of the debate someone is on concerning skilled based immigration, this should be disturbing. It is a sad commentary on our nation when we need to "import" people to fill positions because we cannot prepare our "unskilled" citizens for these jobs!
5
Except for Tom Steyer's running around inciting impeachment, billionaires stay largely in the background in our political discourse. Sure, they advocate for causes beneficial to their businesses, net neutrality for instance, and they certainly back political candidates that will cut their taxes, but with social issues they take the approach of stiffing the US government of every tax nickel they possibly can, and then "give back" by deciding what needs doing and doing it their own way. I have sensed, for a long time, that these mega corporations no longer consider themselves part of any nation. They are multinational in their profit making as well as their concept of community.
One tech titan observed that the US only has 340 million people, the world has over seven billion, therefore the US is at a disadvantage in pumping out enough tech students to sate their appetites. Foreign tech workers are more desirable not only because we can pay them less, but because the US is not footing the bill for raising and educating them.
That's just how it is folks. You want to maintain your national borders? Your "heritage?" The very tech titans you worship don't care one iota. It makes no economic sense for them to care.
By electing Donald Trump, you just gave them all a giant tax break. If you believe it's going to trickle down to you, then you just haven't figured out that you are nothing but an entry on a global spreadsheet.
5
Trump's upcoming State of the Union will worship the oligarchs, and bait the white poor as forgotten and neglected, as every other despot has done for centuries. Mr. Cohen is too kind. The national interest is dead. We are all owned by the Davos class, and anyone who thinks otherwise can only point to the bare remnants of what's left. Infrastructure, education, health care, and the future of representative democracy will only belong to those who work at poverty wages and accept the status quo for the next century. The mirage is complete. When insulated by extreme racism and bigotry, the lasting legacy of corrupt power on a global scale, will never change.
48
The country was made impervious to Trump's vulgarities by television and film and mass media.
Keep in mind that globalization has been underwritten hugely by American taxpayer's support of its military via taxes and and that small percentage of American's, many who would be termed "deplorables", who form its military: "Pax Americana".
Citicorp, btw, received the biggest bailout during the financial crisis...something around $150 billion? It also had to be bailed out in the early 90s.
3
Exactly right, Mr. Cohen. America, once a world leader in educational achievement, has become a world laggard in educational achievement. The consequences aren't just economic, they lead to political calamities as well.
We now face an ever more repressive regime in a nation dedicated to freedom for all. The American people have been duped into putting price tags on government, speech, justice, higher education, and health care, and have thus handed the nation over to plutocrats who delight in our ongoing ignorance. Trump may indeed be hard to dislodge because he appears to be delighting in his reality show drama of distractions and contrived cliffhangers. But even worse is the prospect that proof of collusion and obstruction of justice may not matter; he may ride the support of his enablers in and out of congress to a full term in the presidency, regardless of high crimes and misdemeanors.
1
The dystopia that Aldous Huxley depicted in his 1936 classic "Brave New World" humans had forfeited things like free choice and free expression. Their lives were glossed over by a cynical amusement on the part of the ruling cadre who had them completely under their control from the moment of conception until they went up the architecturally notable smokestacks of the community crematorium. We are headed ineluctably in that direction, as Americans for example pay much more attention to their cheesy Chinese electronic toys and dumb themselves further and further down with their inability to learn anything substantive as young people. We have entire groups of Americans who are an entitlement caste, who do nothing to contribute to the economy but spend the money that Uncle Sugar dispenses, on their tawdry lifestyle based on waiting for illusory reparations. Meantime those who have initiative continue to prosper but their personal and political freedom is resented by the Big Brother state dependent on its entitlement payments from behemoth multinationals...
3
Open societies work when the poor and the vulnerable are protected.
72
Roger, please do not use the Opioid Epidemic to further your political points. When you say "the opioid crisis is not in the pills, it's in the desperate, atomized circumstances that surround and spread them" you are demonstrating your ignorance of the disease of addiction. There are tens of thousands of young people dying from accidental overdoses these days and they are now to be found at our most elite prep schools, Division I athletic programs, selective fraternities and most affluent suburbs. It is indeed in the pills. The well has been poisoned.
1
Roger is telling us he understands Trump yet he doesn't seem to lament the costs of globalization. Roger, you love Europe, or at least certainly Western Europe, so how do you feel that we have 95 million or around 90% of the combined population of France and Spain out of the labor market?
2
Roger Cohen demonstrates the blind spot liberals have when talking about "open societies". Liberals were silent in the US about the crushing of free speech and ideas on college campuses for decades and only seemed to recognize the problem when some clearly liberal professors and administrators got the same treatment. Warnings about an endangered free press in America fails to note it was under the Obama administration that several journalists were threatened with jail for failing to reveal sources and the administration worked hand in hand with select journalists to promote the Iran nuclear deal in a state sponsored propaganda campaign. And it has been the Left that has promoted speech codes and political correctness to brand competing ideas as racist and hateful in an attempt to silence speech.
Please spare me the critiques of Trump and the Poles.
5
While the mega-corporations, like giant dinosaurs, are thrashing it out in the jungle, the minor species are scurrying around trying to not be trampled to death. Yes, the Corporate State needs our money and needs to exploit us in order to have the size to fight with each other and to cannibalize each other. Corporations are predatory, or they are eaten up by bigger predators.
Marx explained that very well. But the problem is that so many people worship money and the people who have money. Many Americans believe that Big Corporations exploit the rest of the world in order to bring home a few scraps of meet for Americans. With what's left, the "right sort" of Americans can make sure that they get the lion share of the spoils. If immigrants and brown people don't like being exploited in America, they can go back to their own countries and be exploited there. It's sad, but too many people feel this way. They feel validation because "their team" is winning, just like Patriot fans...
I used to believe in the innate reason and goodness of people, and now I'm getting really cynical. We will get rid of the symptom (Trump), but the ills in our society will continue even under Democrats. Nobody is really proposing change. Capitalism, as we know it, will kill itself, and our experiment in democracy with it.
In Russia, Egypt, and Turkey, the self appointed "Presidents For Life" see to it that any and all credible challengers are jailed or threatened with imprisonment if they dare stand for election. Here, Our Fake So Called President, Don The Con, led his supporters in chants of "lock her up" in reference to his last challenger. Now that he and his evil cronies are in charge, there may not be another election.
1
Corporations have certainly replaced politics as we once knew it. Right now, as others have pointed out, even employed people working two jobs may not be able to make ends meet and depend on food stamps or other forms of welfare. The taxpayer is providing the money missing from wages and salaries.
I´ll believe Congress is serious about welfare reform when they introduce a bill making it illegal for companies to pay wages below the poverty line. It is unconscionable that this is still going on.
9
"America’s education system has failed to respond to technological disruption. Only huge investment — what Biglari calls a Marshall Plan for education — can change that."
Before we launch a "Marshall Plan for education" we should first determine how the American education system has failed. I do not be it's failure can be measured by standardized test scores. Rather, the system has failed to provide it's students with the social and emotional skills needed to cope with the disruption caused by technology. This fuels the scapegoating of "others" that, in turn, feeds the totalitarian mindsets across the globe. Moreover, the system as it exists today perpetuates the ideals of consumerism: that more and bigger is better. This leads to collective indifference to the environmental degradation we are witnessing today. Finally, the system as it exists today celebrates individualism. When individualism is celebrated at the expense of teamwork, the ",,,atomized circumstances that surround and spread" the use of opioids seems like a good way to escape if you are not succeeding.
7
Your blanket condemnation of the "system" of education is uninformed. Sure, college econ classes that push the libertarian ideal of "unfettered capitalism" push hyper-individualism, consumerism fueled by "winners" signaling their superiority, and condemnation of "losers" as lazy. But my college education in the hard sciences and the social sciences presented a diversity of ideas, none of which included the values you cite.
I taught in public schools for 22 years after a 20-year career in business. I can only speak of what I observed in my schools. There is a diversity of ideas influenced by the teacher's perspective and often by the parents' socioeconomic level. But my school district pushed HARD and provided outstanding professional development to move all teachers toward the very outcomes you value. And my city and school district are committed to remaining as one city to make sure all schools have adequate funding, regardless of zip code.
We MUST teach students social and emotional skills, or we can't raise achievement and graduation rates. Students who are stressed out due to poverty and/or dysfunction in the home face learning challenges.
The idea that we push individualism over cooperation is total nonsense. Best practices emphasize cooperation and collaboration because they increase learning AND promote the skills needed in the workplace.
Pushing consumerism? I cannot speak to what other teachers do, but NOT IN MY CLASSROOM. Character mattered most.
Trump's supporters reject an open society because they see the globalised world as the source of two evils. They believe closing their borders will help promote economic nationalism and nativism. Their European counterparts in Poland share the same views.
Economic globalisation has left low-skilled workers worse off, because their jobs had been either outsourced to low-waged countries or been taken by robots.
Cultural globalisation has linked countries together, promoting cultural exchange. An open society is susceptible to the multicultural dimensions a modern globalised world inhabits, and open borders let in migrants from different cultures and beliefs. Nationalists and bigots loathe migration, as they fear the erosion of their cultural values and identity, while the untrained and uneducated complain about foreigners taking their jobs, and claiming benefits etc.
"Only huge investment — what Biglari calls a Marshall Plan for education — can change that." Activism may help more than education, which starts at home - bottom up.
5
Yes, but globalization and neoliberalism did not come out of thin air. They were a response to both "too much democracy" in the 60s (i.e., activism and grass roots politics) and the profit squeeze of late capitalism, as prior forms of production matured and competition increased. These are not just political developments; they have deep political-economic roots and we cannot solve the problems if we do not see that. Marx (yes, him) saw that capitalism has a strong tendency to consume itself, even as it also self-regulates to resist that tendency. It is the underlying structure of the system that must be understood and changed.
7
Every step forward, the Agricultural Revolution that created civilizations, Moveable type that educated the masses, the Industrial Revolution that modernized labor, the Digital Revolution that has dissolved some aspects of national borders has come at a cost to the societies that fostered and created them.
Humans have adapted and thrived through these monumental changes even though many individuals have railed against change as that adaptation has occurred. We can work to insure that all humans benefit and so bend to arc of progress toward greater equality. As nuclear was is about the only alternative, I really think we should.
10
Properly done, globalization is what the world needs. The less-developed world should indeed rise toward First World levels.
What's wrong with our actually-existing-globalization is that our elite has thrown away those who labored diligently for them, but are no longer needed. For the present US, that means those in the 2000 miles between the coasts, the engine that carried America from maybe tenth place to the greatest industrial power on earth. Ever.
What is needed is not walls to protect the developed countries from the rising nations. The advance of the less-developed world is a wonderful, humane, process.
What is wrong is that when the stagnation set in here (the early 1970s), and the US elite, properly so, began the turn toward significant foreign production, it was done behind the backs of the domestic working class.
The word for this kind of sneaky policy is "sleazy". And as happens to furtive endeavors, it has been discovered. This has led to an explosion of outrage. Thus, we have Trump, a flipping off, much more than a policy choice.
Our growing sectional strife (cf. 1850s) shall not heal until the lower classes are brought into the discussion. The elite needs to say "we really do have to go through a painful restructuring, and let's talk together and choose together how we are going to do it.
"By the ballot, even. And we are ashamed of ourselves for doing this in the dark up till now. Please forgive us."
Or 1850 might become 1860.
42
" The less-developed world should indeed rise toward First World levels."
Have you thought of what would happen to the world if all human beings produced the same amount of CO2 as Americans do? India and China have roughly the same population but China emits five times the CO2 as India does. If Indians were to achieve the Chinese per capita emissions, (let alone America's) it would be a disaster for the planet.
What is more, as the book Affluence without Abundance shows, it is perfectly possible to have a happy life without a high standard of living.
Progressive Americans need to stop dreaming about a world when everyone has the standard of living as Americans, or even more absurdly, actually lives in America to escape their own dysfunctional governments. (smile).
6
alyosha - as a coast'y, East coast'y, I'm a little tired of this "its our fault" nonsense. That the forgotten all live between the coasts. That's more divisive politics talk. There are plenty of the forgotten on the coasts. They live in urban and rural settings, they live in the traditional post-WW2 'burbs too.
The ones who built and still build the major cities, occupy the high-rise office buildings, and also ply the coastal water-ways, mountains and valleys.
Working class people. Who didn't isolate those in-between the coasts, aka; "fly-over" land. Those on the coasts took the first hits of immigrants, the wretched refuse - coming here to build better lives. Coasties, also took the probable first hits from globalization too.
But now we're being relegated the bad-guys,and and having our votes discounted by those in-between, who are now deemed the holders of True Americanism, who are the focus of political forces from one party, trying to set all Americans at each other...for their own gains.
Many coasties moved inland, in hopes of finding a different lifestyle. Too often they were met with suspicion. Discovered insular peoples, communities beholden to their own elites, and under the thumbs of a few economic powers. Stuck in a past that had long since passed, but mightily they cling. Making claims of Super-patriots, and bastions of true-blue Americana.
They didn't get left out of anything, they willingly stayed behind!
Their gift to all of us? Trump!
1
Excellent, concise column, as usual from Mr. Cohen. I keep coming back to Robert Wright's book, Nonzero, when I ponder the ideas in many recent editorials because, though it was published in 2000, it has profound relevance to what we are currently experiencing. In it Wright traces biological and cultural evolution from the perspective of game theory, and makes a compelling case that non-zero sum solutions ultimately rule the day. On this particular subject Wright (correctly in my view) expects that as globalization inevitably continues due to improvements in technology and transportation, and because globalization is in essence a non-zero solution, we will see the need for more globally structured oversight mechanisms to counter the increasing power of supranational corporate interests. Ultimately, that will lead to world government - not to dictate to corporations, but to balance and control them. I believe we're almost there, although due to the usual human flaws of ego and greed the journey will undoubtedly be a rocky one.
36
Thank you for using the word "greed." Globalization would have, and will be, fine provided controlling mechanisms are in place to counteract this cultural and even human tendency. No, "Mr. Market" does not in a practical way provide these mechanisms.
Ultimately, the ultra wealthy will need to dig a deeper moat and double their mercenary armies should they not fully comprehend more than just a few crumbles need to be bestowed upon mere ordinary fellow inhabitants of our shared planet!
1
Indeed.
In fact, when has democracy ever triumphed as a movement when it was not tied to higher income for those involved? Not even the US can claim that support for its Revolution was universal, or evenly widespread, and must recognize that starting with a Tea Party against tariffs gave the movement its true purpose: more money for the average guy.
Generally, transitioning to democracy from a situation of highly concentrated wealth, such as monarchy, has seemed like a good move. Today, however, that clarity has been lost, and those with great wealth have extensive psychological warfare tools, and bigger stacks of cash, at their ready disposal. It remains to be seen if Americans will devolve into a never-ending fight over scraps, as seems to be the case now, or actually show some true conviction about democracy. I have my very sincere doubts, given that in over two and a half centuries, much of the country does not enjoy unfettered and universal adult suffrage. For if you cannot vote freely and fairly even now, what could possibly indicate there is some hidden reserve of dedication to democratic principle that can be tapped?
35
Thank you for this extremely well written piece. It elegantly tied many disparate themes together and made sense of what is happening now, globally. And it’s downright scary.
17
"In Davos, the president said: “When people are forgotten the world becomes fractured. Only by hearing and responding to the voices of the forgotten can we create a bright future that is truly shared by all.”"
This quote from the Davos displays an amazing disconnect between words written and the actions taken.
Yes, Donald Trump intuited and exploited the anger of the forgotten middle class, largely in rural areas most hard hit by globalized manufacturing.
But his exhortation to "listen to and respond to the voices of the forgotten?" Please tell me how Trump's policies, heavily tilted to benefit large corporations, are responding to the voice of the forgotten?
If anything, he's responding with anger and threats against all groups of the forgotten: immigrants, African Americans, Medicaid patients, the long-term unemployed corrupt party leaders claim are lazy takers.
Dear God, as the world continues to transfer wealth (such as it is) up from the "forgotten" to the coffers of the mega-rich, I see no evidence leaders are helping the struggling.
The anger is there. World leaders exploit it. But then, in a negative feedback loop, they reward the very institutions that created rising inequality.
Education may be key, but in the west it's under siege, viewed with mistrust, seen as a scheme of paymaster privilege.
Is the world lurching towards a new Middle Ages where the power centers--the church--has been replaced by global corporations?
87
No, more than likely it is moving towards open rebellion. At some point the imbalance of wealth will tip the scales and people will have reached the end of their patience for leaders that promise much, but only deliver crumbs. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
1
Hypocrisy is LEGION in this world, especially in the lounge at Davos.
Corporate-state societies versus Nation-states have always found ways to skirt basic laws of cooperation and consideration to lift the standard of living.
For all, 'justice and liberty' is enshrined in our own Pledge of Allegiance.
Will corporate boards look outside their windows to the nearby neighborhoods? Rarely.
3
@Christine - "Please tell me how Trump's policies, heavily tilted to benefit large corporations, are responding to the voice of the forgotten?"
Well, no one can. But how do "we" get thru to those who have accepted as doctrine, that whats good for the King and his Courtiers, is good for the peasants? There is a demographic in the US, Trump voters and others clinging to conservative ideologies, that the peasants are beholden to the wealthy elites, and by giving them more enough will trickle down to them, and they too will benefit.
How do we get thru to those who cling to those beliefs? They seem incapable of being reached by any thing called facts, and/or historical reality.
The world is not lurching, its running with arms windmilling...heading for a fall.
1
Unfortunately, Trump's idea of "the forgotten" is race-based. The phrase is a dog whistle for the xenophobic, ironically, white males more than others, in whose twisted view, they are the most forgotten, the most discriminated against, and the most disadvantaged. The solutions are, therefore, to build walls, lock the gates, and exclude anyone who is "different." However, the world population is changing. Their path will lead this nation to ultimately be an isolated shadow of itself, an isle of aging white folks in a world which is increasingly interconnected, younger, and colored in shades of beige, tan, and brown...
96
So essentially you believe we should just forget about nearly 95 million native born Americans out of the work force on account of a world filled with "brown, beige, and tan people?" That is curiously race based is it not? And those 95 million people already include plenty of aging white, black, brown people btw.
3
You could probably also characterize Norway, Switzerland, even Canada as "isolated", and full of those hated "aging white folks". Of course, these countries have the highest living standards in the world, thanks to the generations of "aging white folks" who worked and paid taxes in those "isolated" countries for decades. Why should "aging white folks" want to destroy their own societies and cultures, and put their personal safety at risk? Most humans - not just western white people - prefer people who are similar to themselves, by the way. I LIKE "aging white folks", including "white males". And I can understand why they feel they are under attack, especially by the media.
3
The lyrics from South Pacific sums it up pretty well. You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
1
Trump is the result of a mistake. We overestimated the intelligence of the voting public, we paid too much attention to the polls, we were Bernie selfish and Trump got a gimme. If the presidential election were the best 2 out of 3, none of this would be happening and Trump would be nothing more than an unfortunate, near miss. As it is, Trump is a self inflicted wound and a monument to self abuse. And, yes, he is your president. Denial is not doing us any good. So, watch, listen, stay angry, and if it helps, scream, cuss and throw things. But, on November 6, don't repeat the same mistake we made last year. Vote early and vote often.
125
It seems perhaps that you miss the point. Bone spur got a minority of the vote. Impugning the voting public is a misguided accusation against people who got it right. The biggest interpersonal mistake that anyone can make is accusing someone of something that which they are not guilty of. I agree, everyone does an enormous public service by voting. In Australia they have over 90% voting participation, and they have a modest find of a few dollars for anyone of voting age who is eligible to vote who doesn't vote. There is a true democracy. We would do well to emulate them, not impugning those who did vote and actually elected the best candidate – flawed as she was.
5
there is no such thing as a history of "if". i f you are not already involved, get active politically, if you are active, then talk it up, get others involved!
2
We will all be banging at the robo guarded gates when automation replaces workers too quickly and deeply for our economic system to adjust, placing resources in the hands of the few who will have no need to share them with those whose labor is no longer needed.
55
Scapegoating begins with our attacking those who we perceive as inferior to us. Hence, most Hispanic can be attacked in America as hard working, but under-educated, taking poor paying jobs, speaking English poorly, etc. But when the income fails to rise and the well paying jobs do not materialize eventually who is determined to be the scapegoat will change. Indeed, eventually the inequality of income will lead to focusing on the wealthy and their greed.
Your wealth doesn't matter until it becomes apparent your disproportionate wealth has an impact on the rest of us. Some people may be and are forgotten/ignored (poor child, refugee, undocumented, etc) until far too many are forgotten then the dynamics for revolution begin to simmer. If the wealthy were wise, rather than adding to their wealth they would seek means to improve life for others - whether through better education, health care, etc. Severe inequality will lead to scapegoating the very rich - eventually.
53
It is a lesson in history that the mega-rich can I’ll afford to ignore.
1
Evil lurks in the shadows of the good. What Russia and China have is not socialism or communism. What US denounced all these years was not socialism but the dark forces under it's guise. US has always championed openness and transparency by protecting free speech. Free Speech is not a commodity to be valued by a market states or dictator. The solution is collaboration between free countries to uphold the rights of workers. In the absence of a global labour union it is for the countries that uphold free speech, right to livelihood and the right to care for their families. It is for such a union to speak out against atrocities by corporates in the name of capitalism for make no mistake - evil now lurks under the shadow of capitalism.
15
The 4 evils that brought us here:
When corporations gained status as a person under the law (Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad) and the courts upheld this nonsense.
What money for campaigns was equated to speech (Buckley c Valeo).
Granting corporations the right to sue sovereign governments under Investor-State Dispute provisions of these so-called free trade deals.
Removing limits on corporate cash in politics (Citizens United v FEC).
Three were directly failures of our courts. One was the action of Congress plus a Court system willing to tolerate such nonsense.
This combination of things has made corporations in many ways extralegal entities. Can you imagine if a private citizen had stashed money overseas and not paid taxes on it the way any number of large American companies have, awaiting a change in the tax laws? Do you not think the IRS would have strong armed you and perp walked you on camera into a nice jail cell? The corporations flaunted US taxes and bought politicians who changed the tax laws to their liking.
The sad thing is that many citizens mad about such things voted for the very party and President who gave big business the tax cut they paid for. Trump has not drained the swamp- he has expanded it and given it protected status.
267
You left out one other important thing: the legalization by the court's of government corruption. So, they have all three branches of government plus have rigged the system so that any corruption is impossible to prosecute.
Add gerrymandering and the combination seems to be fairly well protected from any correction via the voting booth.
2
If the corporations hid their profits overseas and got away with it why did the Obama administration do nothing about it? It uses FATCA laws against individuals who were born in this country 50 years ago even if they left before they were a year old. Boris Johnson past mayor of London had to pay capital gains taxes on a home he sold because the US doesn't let people drop their US citizenship. Yet it allowed US registered corporations to evade taxes for years.
If the corporations are bringing those profits in now that there is a tax rate to their liking are they going to be assessed penalties and interest by the IRS the same way individuals are? I'm sure that APPLE didn't throw the money in a shoe box for safekeeping. How much investment gain was there from that money?
This confluence of government and the corporations is starting to resemble 1930s Germany when the corporations supported one political party they disliked because it was fighting another political party they disliked more. It led to the destruction of a country and its citizens. Is that where we're going too?
1
This is a minor point, but an important one.
America’s opioid crisis is precisely in the pills, not in circumstances surrounding them.
Addiction is physical, not psychological, and not cultural. The reason for the current epidemic is the availability and potency of drugs.
You don't become addicted because life is tough. The most oppressed peoples of the world are not dying of drug use, but famine. You become addicted because taking drugs is addicting. For heroin or fentanyl one dose can do it. A week on a good dose of oxycontin too.
A greedy, reckless, pharmaceutical industry, spent over a decade and a half flooding the country with prescription pain killers, with mammoth sales campaigns replete with false advertising that new brands were not addictive, and could be used with liberality. Doctors scribbled away. Normal people who needed pain killers got hooked.
When doctors suddenly stopped prescribing, the solution for addicts was much stronger street drugs. Perhaps some people do experiment. But we no longer think that the marijuana wave beginning in the 1960s, represents hollow souls. And with the advent of fentanyl, one experimentation is too often lethal.
To say that the epidemic is a response to desperate circumstances makes a medical problem a mystical one. There has been some good progress in debunking the notion that addicts are weak people. Circumstances and character don't make addicts, addicting drugs do.
34
Yes, some opioid addicts were prescribed opioids once for pain and their lives were destroyed. They need medical help. But your blanket medicalization of opiod addiction ignores the reality that MANY of us who were prescribed opioids (in my case oxycontin) for pain did NOT become addicted. I took it for 2-3 days post-neurosurgery years ago, and the left-over pills from that 7-day prescription remain unused. I know that addiction runs in families (runs in mine). I know that drug use can destroy those families. I know that when my family members actually recover from addiction, it is by finally addressing the underlying psychological pain that urges them to self-medicate with alcohol and illicit drugs. So when I experience psychological pain, I exercise, I meditate, and I talk to doctors who sometimes offer APPROPRIATE medication options. I don't EVER consider self-medication and that is my conscious choice. The bottle of oxycontin remains untouched. I am not the only one with the power to make these kinds of choices.
Mr. Cohen paints a sad and gloomy picture of the part of the world known as free. Perhaps the masses are striving now, in the 21st century, to do away with democracy, such as they were doing away with absolutist monarchies in the 18th to the 20th century.
America are heading toward a Brexshit moment with Trump.
The only dynamic regions in the country are where there are recent arrivals. They bring drive and ambition that the natives don't have. One can see this quite clearly in Silicon Valley. Native residents are completely underwater compared to recent arrivals from elsewhere in the country and the world. They form the underclass.
It used to be that second-tier postgraduate technical students would go to Germany and Scandinavia when they can't make it to the US. If the outrageous immigration proposals proposed by the White House, specifically not allowing citizens to sponsor their parents and siblings, are ever enacted, no one with a choice would waste their time immigrating to the US. Venture capital follows talent, and if that talent goes to France or Germany instead - countries that are signatories to the EU human rights charter including the right to family reunion - the money will follow.
Treating immigrants like trash will only result in the best not showing up here. Maybe America needs a reminder that its scientific and technical cadre is overwhelmingly foreign-born.
29
The problem with importing the talent is that when the low skilled native born have the numbers they will look to throw a spanner in the works at any given opportunity. The question being asked here in the UK is; with some of the best universities in the world, why do we have to import our professionals? And isn't there a moral case for countries like the UK and US taking mainly low skilled immigrants and putting their children through our school systems to eventually become our professionals?
1
Many times those parents and siblings have to be supported by the American people. I know of one case here where a woman got her citizenship and promptly brought her father and brother in form Russia. The father has had three strokes and cannot work. The brother has cerebral palsy and cannot work. Both are getting SSI payments from Social Security and Medicaid. I don't think the plan was to bring in people who are not self sustaining to be cared for by American citizens' taxes. If these people want to bring in their relatives they should be prepared to care for them.
4
Face it -- the mass of citizens have been transformed into docile consumers, prey to their Pavlovian reflexes for bigger and better at the best price. Ideology and values evaporated after the end of the Cold War. I can only see a major global cataclysm as a way to rouse the masses out of their torpor which has enabled the rise of autocrats such as Trump and Erdogan.
11
You're in France. Do you have any idea of the reach and power of Fox News and the hateful, right wing radio hosts? There is literally no place in America where this stuff isn't blasted out, 24/7. Trust me, I've been driving from one end of America to the other, and I can confirm this through experience.
1
“As inequality grew nationally (while narrowing globally)...”
Therein lies the rub. Globalization moved American wealth to developing nations to improve lives there. That is an issue of national concern, one that most politicians pre-Trump were happy to ignore. Our policies should focus on keeping more money in the US, even if it means those in the Third World suffer.
7
"Our policies should focus on keeping more money in the US, even if it means those in the Third World suffer."
Exactly the wrong conclusion and in complete opposition to the author's solutions. Keeping more money in the US currently means allowing the ultra-rich to horde more of our money, given the upward movement of our taxes to the uber-wealthy.
3
It's not a zero sum game, though. The overall size of the global economy HAS grown (to the detriment of our natural habitat) and, according to most studies, the lions share of profits from Americas hyperglobalized trade HAS even remained in the US. Those fruits of economic activity have just been distributed in an increasingly lopsided fashion among the population of your country.
So. Your policies should focus not on keeping more "money" in the US, but distribute the profits to a (much) broader level of your society. An idea, which will be complete anathema to Mr. Trump and his enablers in congress, of course.
4
Unfortunately the capital and goods go where the market is. The market is controlled by Asia with over 50% of world population. China and India alone are 1/3 of world market. Are we gonna stop our companies from selling outside Our borders, limiting them to a mere 5% of world market?
We have been taking home a disproportionate 25% of global wealth. Now with the rise of ROW the pie gets bigger but our share of the pie will be reduced. Just the natural order of things. But this is only a relative loss of power not absolute. We feel we lost something because others have risen and are claiming their fair share of a growing pie.
We need to be smart and not against global trade and isolate ourselves. China and India did this in the name of self sufficiency in the 50s,60s and the result is poverty. Now they have opened for global trade and we are trying to shut down. Bad move. We need to join the the rise of Asia and rise with them.
But we need to ensure the wealth gain is equally distributed by taxing the wealthy and paying for social services, healthcare, education etc. Instead we cut taxes for the rich and make inequality even worse. And thats our failure. And for that the GOP and the con man current president are to be blamed.
2
The Soviet Union, awful as it was, served to protect workers in the West, including in the United States. The reason was that their major employers and the government worried that, if the workers were not treated decently they might turn radical. Government and industry tolerated unions, and in fact engaged them in the anti-Communist struggle. But once the Soviet Union went into decline, and certainly after it disintegrated, the restraints on getting tough with labor evaporated. Unions were crushed and salaries stayed stagnant. This ultimately contributed to resentment and disaffection and the electoral consequences we now experience.
14
This column eerily mirrors a conversation that I had with a friend only yesterday regarding multinational corporations replacing governments as the representatives of power in Western democracies and how disturbing this reality has become.
How do democracies begin to compete with authoritarian governments such as China, when so much of their power has been transferred to multinational corporations that have only profit as a motive and are beholden less and less to their democratic countries of origin and the interests of their people?
The populist movement is so right and so wrong. It is so right in pointing to the harm that both the right and the left have done to the working class by jointly pushing neoliberalism too far, but are so wrong in demonizing liberalism and government, and empowering the extremist, nationalist, isolationist right.
By demonizing liberalism, by enabling the trashing of liberal democratic norms and principles in and out of government, they have strengthened, not weakened neoliberalism and multicorporate power. In crippling government, they declaw the only institution powerful enough to check the power of corporations and stand up for workers. By withdrawing from international agreements, they make us less able to promote our own interests, not more. By empowering the Republican Party and the extremist right, they trade a few token tax cuts for continued economic exploitation and educational and cultural decline.
We need to get off this train.
30
"By withdrawing from international agreements, they make us less able to promote our own interests, not more."
Except that the agreements we were in worked to disadvantage us. How many jobs have we lost due to NAFTA? How many were going to be lost to TPP? The Paris Accord was going to cause us to lose jobs because we would be working with its strictures while other large countries like China was going to be allowed to do what it is doing until 2030. Everyone acknowledged that our efforts would have a negligible effect on the climate. To top it off the US was expected to contribute $3 Billion to subsidize the minimal efforts of other countries.
Agreements are OK but they shouldn't be detrimental to US citizens.
2
There is a profound question to be asked !
Who or what is our civilisation meant to be designed to serve ?
Rich people ?
Corporations ?
All people ?
The morally correct answer is of course all people.
The current reality is otherwise - our civilisation is serving rich people and corporations to the absolute detriment of all others.
What point is there in consolidating manufacturing in a communist country such as China with a disgusting record of human rights abuse and a totalitarian political system that tramples over democratic principles and freedom ?
It is obvious that the factories and people of the free world need to be gainfully employed and that the economic might of the free world must be protected and preserved to preserve our freedoms.
It is time for us to rediscover the true meaning of the notion of the common good and to use our democratic rights to wrest power from the selfish few.
There is no crime in people becoming well off as a result of their endeavours but there need to be constraints on the accumulation of wealth and consolidation of economic power so that the lives of the many are not reduced to subsistence slavery where financial bonds have merely replaced leg irons and chains.
30
Mr. Cohen, What is "irrational" about Poland wanting to keep their nation Polish? What is irrational about Poland objecting to bureaucrats in Brussels acting like a European legislature, even though no one elected them and the EU was created to be a trade organization, not a European government.
13
Joe: Happy to inform you, that Poland is not "ruled" by "unelected bureaucrats" in Brussels. Rather, it entered a series of contracts to join the EU back in 2004 and since then had the opportunity to co-negotiate new agreements (more contracts) in conjunction with the other members of the club.
On many topics, Poland (like all members) enjoys the right to veto certain propositions (for instance, it will be able to veto any negotiated terms of future trade with a post-brexit UK, i.e. a position of "strength" vis-a-vis the UK, that Poland has never had in the past). What Poland cannot do, is imposing its will internlly and externally without due regard to the interests of all the other members and then cry "dictatorship" because of this limitation of its "freedom".
Apropos "freedom": Poland is absolutely free to leave the EU within the timeframe of roughly two years on its own will. It just has to accept the propable loss of economic activity, due to leaving the European Common Market. And of course it might risk to fall under the influence of Moscow again, despite beeing a member of NATO.
5
The problem is Poland would have remained poor had it been outside the EU. So they want to take all the benefits and not want to share responsibility of paying their fair share for those benefits. Poland on its own is a small market and is not gonna compete against the giant next door or giants in Asia and America.
So Poland can have all the sovereignty they want but remain poor by leaving the EU or be prosperous by joining the EU and lose some of their sovereignty. They can make the choice but they can’t have it both ways.
2
What one needs to add is that job growth in one country may lead to job decline in other countries. Not only by moving factory workers from, for example, mexico to U.S. but also by the efficiency gains in highly industrialized, service oriented countries (like Switzerland) we take jobs from other counties. For example, the administration of global company's headquarters like e.g. Nestle is overproportionally allocated in our country, and therefore not e.g. in Nepal. Our unemployment rate was always about 5% within last decades. So people say: "You see, industrialization and automation dont kill jobs, for every dead job position there comes a new one into life." But - I believe as a layman economist - globally this is wrong. Some countries are sucking up all serivce oriented jobs. And this is the real problem. If states dont start to solve this issue globally and together, we will never improve this situation.
The article said "International Companies optimize globally rather than nationally" - is this impact by International companies now positive or negative? I guess its negative; because they optimize (even though globally) for themselves (i.e. the corporations), not for the people. From my point of view, globalization harms more than it improves.
5
It is not globalization the harms the world, per se, it is unregulated globalization that allows corporations to acquire the cheapest labor, choose the most favorable corporate climate, and in general, as you say, optimize for themselves rather than for humanity. We in the US are unable to even tax our global corporations, and you in Switzerland won't change an attitude that benefits your country. This type of thinking pervades every country, while corporations pillage them all for short-term gain. Expecting the whole world to work in concert to rein in corporate greed and short-sightedness and give all workers a fair share in corporate prosperity is a goal that cannot be attained in our current oligarchy-driven climate.
5
I agree with much of what you say about global corporatism replacing nation statehood as (debased, horrifying) organizing principles for many of the world's peoples, and also for destroying economic security for many in the process. Unlike the mythological fiction that business and right-learning elites have promoted in United States since the end of the Civil War, unfettered capitalism is not a "win-win for all" but a "win for the super rich" and a "loss for the rest of us." The New Deal policies of the FDR-Truman Era seemed to meditate some of the crueler aspect of libertarian capitalism for four or five decades, but the actions of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and sadly, Obama, have kept us moving away from that middle-class memory for three decades since. I also agree that the opioid crisis is related to the sense of hopelessness many Americans feel due to the effects of global corporatism on their lives. What I disagree with in your assessment is: 1) Somehow the vague notion "more education" will eradicate or better this new global corporate nightmare and 2) that unfettered immigration into the United States is a moral duty that will yield mostly benefits to the American economy. I am not advocating reactionary xenophobia but at least a rational discussion of the chaotic situation in which the global corporatist service-sector-oriented economic crisis in which the United States currently finds itself.
10
The creation of a country with very few economic "winners" millions of "losers" is the end result of our capitalist system. As you note, it is not a bug but a feature.
3
Who do we care about? We see it in our living standards, in our quality of life. We care about the rich: they have very fine lives. The middle class has been shrinking for decades; by that I mean those with a home, a good income, benefits, good health care, good schools for their kids, some financial security, etc.
No, we've left that wonderland for concentrated wealth and neglect of all others. The average American is not sure if America cares about them. That's a real, central issue. How committed are we to each other?
So, if immigrants from countries in even worse situations come here looking for a better life, what do you supposed those already here looking for a better life will feel? I see many that are very supportive of immigration, but have little regard for working to end poverty and desperation and falling living standards. What? What do we expect from those that work hard and have no hope of ever owning housing because their bills, including rent and food and health care, take far to much to save anything. Where is the commitment to the 'general good'? I do not see it. We revolve around and serve billionaires. And until we deal with this criminal inequality, until we see every citizen as worthy of a good and decent life, the madness you speak of will only grow.
Actually, I don't think the 'leaders' at Davos care much about that. They have theirs, they're getting more, and they're protected from the rabble of the rest. Such is our sins.
10
The piece read as if these economic movements are natural events. There were many choices. Reagan sent far right-wing economists to Russia after the Soviet Union dissolution to instruct them on how to set up capitalism (hah!) without social infrastructure. Russia is a test of right-wing economic theory — the place is run by thieves; lawless, except in protecting itself from its citizens. Here, the right-wing abides all white collar crimes while punishing the poor and minorities. Congress chose not to established trade pacts with the developing countries, including China, that strengthened human rights, workers rights, and ecological values of preservation and regulation of pollutants, All choices — there is no magic hand or fingers or whatever of the economy — it is all human-made and therefore, subject to some kind of rules or not. Businesses grabbed and lawyers facilitated the grab. Politicians facilitated the businesses by allowing an endless erosion of workers rights. And when people began falling off their economic ledges, politicians only cut more holes in the safety net. Now, when people are good and mad, politicians are gerrymandering or otherwise hindering voters. So deeply are the right and some of the corporate “left” aligned only with business interests that they are undoing the nation itself, just as they undid Russia. So, farewell to the golden goose and her egg.
13
Surely open societies work better than the closed, authoritarian ones but they must have serious, working political parties, which are supposed to stand up to the unleashed greedy of the national and global too powerful corporations.
If the political parties kneel before the capital, the hopeless people either turn on everyone promising remedies with authoritarian accents or may address to the extreme left in order to subvert the free economy system, which does not deliver for them.
So, the ball is still in the field of those liberals who should oppose Trump but constrain the capital to agree on a better distribution of the national income among the American citizens. Otherwise, the authoritarianism is there to stay for a while with or without Trump.
6
Why, when those on the American 'periphery' are aggrieved, do they blame bureaucrats and immigrants, rather than bankers and businessmen? Why does contemporary populism swing so hard to the right?
17
The answer is media brainwashing, supplemented by churches whose preachers have been mostly brought under the right wing due to the lavish tax exemption for their activities.
1
Oil prices brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and if America had kept its promises to help Russia transition to Democracy, we wouldn't have the problems we do now. We abandoned democracy a long time ago.
3
One of the primary responsibilities of government must be to maintain and strengthen the cultural fence posts within which peoples can labor to live contented lives. Responsible ones, over time, will seek to eliminate the more corrosive and traditional elements of those fence posts, such as racism, ethnic centrism, gender identity, religious and class biases; but they must not seek to destroy the fence posts. What Trump sensed instinctively (undoubtedly not as a product of intellectual epiphany) was that relativists were trying to do precisely that – on immigration, on cultural relativism, on trade, on class, on verities and values. And he played to that perception with epic success. Others, elsewhere, are building a similar success, even if a derivative one.
This is becoming a global phenomenon among those who subscribe to a liberal Western identity, so Roger’s characterization of them as besieged is apt and timely. Fenceless existence is fine for those who can maintain a fix on themselves in the midst of chaos, but the vast majority of humans need better-defined cultural reference points to remain sane and productive with a chance at contentment. They need to feel connected to something palpable and definable.
9
The transferal of power from nations whose cultures are becoming more amorphous to global corporations with decidedly pragmatic and coherent objectives that have nothing to do with communal culture wasn’t so predictable in the 1960s as it is so evident today, so Biglari’s insights then were quite impressive. For the interests of connected communities of people to be protected, governments will need to be far more assertive against globalist corporations. To do that, they will need to be less dismissive of culture.
The problem with challenging formlessness and cultural chaos is that the reaction against these impulses will tend to be extreme – and centuries of responsible custodianship of fence posts while removing the more corrosive elements can suffer: thus, we see the reaction including highly exclusionary elements, including racism, ethnic centrism and active bias against ANYTHING that is seen to challenge norms.
We threaten sensibly managed cultures at great risk to civilization. And only one of those effects is surrendering governance to global, soulless corporations.
6
Greed will ruin everything in its path, including culture, whether the host is a dictatorship or a democracy. The democracy we've been trying to spread around the world is profit motivated, to say the least. And who has been saying globalism is good and inevitable? Not people who value their culture - we only hear that claim from those whose goal is to make more money. Isolationism is bad, but if we don't get the greedy under control, soon we'll be complaining about the .000001% instead of the .01%.
3
"sensibly managed cultures..." You said something about relativism? Physician, heal thyself.
3
Certainly, 1989 played its role. But I wonder whether the more useful marker is the 1980 ascendance -- embodied in Reagan -- of the government-is-the-problem-not-the-solution mantra. The American commercial class, which saw itself as victim of decades of taxes and regulations, usurped political and legislative processes at federal and state levels. Which is what makes the rationales proffered for November 2016 so puzzling. Purportedly a demand for change ("drain the swamp," "America first" etc.), the vote shows that, other than for the presidency, the new Congress is virtually identical to previous ones. So much for change. The Republican majority in both houses of Congress (not to mention the 32 states where the GOP controls both chambers) tells us that chances for legislation meaningfully beneficial to workers are zero. That will continue as long as (i) half the country's voters let themselves be distracted by culture wars (abortion, gay rights, religion in the public square); and (ii) a significant part (46% in 2016) of the electorate doesn't even bother to show up. Whatever else one says about the state of things, it does reflect what the people as a whole are prepared to tolerate. From the evidence, a well-oiled plutocracy is just fine.
48
Even more useful markers are to be found in the 1830s (defense of slave-ownership against interference by the mob, aka the government), the 1950s, (reactions to Brown Vs Board (UVa and George Mason U giving a home to the rejectionists), and the pivot of the GOP to the Southern Strategy. Nothing Reagan said, nothing said by his acolytes, Gingrich, Norquist, and the unwashed hordes in Congress, and nothing from the mouth of Randian Ryan is new
There is a lot of troubling truth in Roger's article.
Having been in business for more than 30 years, I have seen the evolution of the large corporation to something akin to a nation-state. Through its lobbyists and political contributions, it gains access to leaders in governments across the globe and negotiates with them for what it wants--tax cuts, changes in laws, loosening of worker protections, government funding for projects its likesand the like.
Like a nation, it also has its own "voters"--large shareholders, often institutional investors like banks and pension funds, index funds like Vanguard and Blackrock, and hedge funds. If these voters are not happy, they use their votes as activists to try and remove boards of directors and take over running the corporation with other "candidates." So if a hedge fund shareholder does not like the way the corporation is being run, it begins a very public campaign to remove the directors, which looks a lot like a political campaign, full of advertising, insults and claims that often are more fiction than fact. So like a nation, the government of a corporation can see change agents come to power, or can be overthrown.
And if the corporation is run badly for long enough, like a government its leaders can be toppled. And like a nation, the people who suffer are usually the ones at the bottom--the workers, who lose their jobs and their benefits, and the communities where the plants and offices close.
19
From Biglari in 1993 "companies were displacing nations as the units of international competition" and that trend continues. Big business already "owns" the US and it's government serves it's needs ahead of it's citizens. It's not so much a debate going forward of how much tax a government will levy a company to support the social contract as what business will do proactively when they see a breakdown of government's ability to sustain infrastructure and the the needs of it's population. Can they continue to prosper if the support system they rely on (consumers and infrastructure) collapses? By their nature businesses compete with each other but would have to work together if they were to support the responsibilities currently provided by governments. Historically wars between nations were waged to capture labor and capital to remain viable. Maybe the competitive nature of companies for market and profit will evolve into a form of cooperation to remain sustainable. Now that would be a partnership.
8
The unemployment rate, whatever it actually may be, is less important than the distribution of wealth. When someone can work one or more jobs full time yet struggle to pay the rent or get the boiler repaired, this is a true tragedy. The top one percent reap the lion's share of the profits, not the greeter at Walmart or the packer at Amazon. Only a guaranteed minimum income and free and available healthcare for all will make a real difference.
We are obviously moving away from being a country that will provide the basic minimums to its residents.
149
The fall of communism was as much of a warning to the emerging system(s) replacing it( reign of the multinational as orchestrated and directby by the USA and West European cronies) which happened to be no less authoritarian and far more dangerous , long term .
The Western World , the bastion of Imperialism, insistence on dismantling communism , no matter the cost, failed to se the dire need for a decent replacement.
Should present conditions prevail Corporations will replace nations and end up formulating and imposing on the rest of the world a New Imperialism derived system
25
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall not only the ehd of history declarations were premature and immature but even the motives of the global elite that championed the cause of globalisation and free trade were suspicious as with its entrenched privileged position it had arrogated to itself the veto to pick at will the winners and the losers of the game. In the absence of fair terms of engagement and level-playing field for all the players and stakeholders the globalisation project was bound to go awry that it did eclipsing the liberal open space by the ascendancy of the illiberal authoritarian trends rooted in xenophobic nativist impulses of the populist lumpen.
17
I don’t know the best way to regulate capitalism during an age when international corporations optimize profits globally.
But many people in America used to say that government was supposed to be about ordered liberty and well-regulated capitalism. (The EPA was created back then.) Neither the politicians nor the partisans of either political party seem to talk like that anymore.
Perhaps these new Democratic candidates for office will start talking like that. It would also be fine with me if the Republicans started talking that way and acting accordingly.
I’d argue it’s time to reestablish a connection between our politics and these basic principles.
If there are still a lot of us who buy into the idea that governments in America are supposed to be about ordered liberty and well-regulated capitalism, but neither political party will reestablish an explicit and enduring connection between their politics and those basic ideas, we should see if it’s feasible to form a third party.
63
Question. When nation states are replaced by market states, who really makes the laws? How do people create societies with shared values if they do not directly elect those who make those laws? Closed societies are not the answer, but as we move towards more open societies, we cannot stop asking questions about where we are headed.
102
When nation states are replaced by market states, who really makes the laws?
The people who make laws in a market state are those people who can buy office – politicians choosing voters with the aid of the wealthy. A true democracy, where an actual voting majority chooses politicians, has a better chance of adjusting to the changing economics of the world. All the rest of the discussion is a distraction at this point in this country. It seems there is no issue more important than actual numeric majorities picking politicians. The founders of this country had a good idea. It has been changed in malignant ways.
6
The laws have always been made by the rich and powerful. The initial Constitution of the USA is a rich, white man's charter. From Runnymede to this day, the wealthy decide, and we are shocked, shocked.
'America's education system has failed to respond to technological disruption'.
The problem is not the quality of the American education system. The problem is that technology has wiped out a huge swath of 'middle skill' jobs and replaced them with jobs that require little to no skill. A 'Marshall Plan for education' might produce more educated workers, but it won't create jobs for them to fill.
On top of that, the near future is going to bring another wave of automation that will wipe out many of the low skill jobs as well (driver-less cars displacing Uber drivers and truck drivers).
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I fully agree with you. But we should mention that neverthless its worth to invest into education; the more automation we have, the more time people should spend with education. Im not talking about education to improve job skills, Im talking about education such as history, arts, how to cook, etc. The more automation and thus efficiency we have, the more we should invest in education for ourselves and our society, NOT for skills.
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ChrisQ, I agree. The problem is that even the political elite in America cannot make the distinction between vocational training and education. I have been in the US for 40 years and have seen very little effort or emphasis on improving the quality of American citizens. All people care about is good paying jobs and making money. What you described is very nice but it is pie in the sky for great majority of Americans.
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There is reported to be a shortage of workers in many areas. The focus should be on working with employers to provide education for those jobs.
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All of this is related to the lack of education in our society. And I don't mean just formal education, such as college or trade school, but also and most importantly the personal education that one continues long after they have left school. That education seems to be almost non-existent amongst huge chunks of our society. A staggering percentage of people do not fact check things that they read on Facebook or the internet in general. The majority of people do not bother to read from media that they don't agree with in order to try and obtain a different perspective. And most importantly, most people don't bother to really educate themselves about how our governments, our economy, and our politics really work. As long as Buzzfeed continues to be the largest news provider on the internet I am afraid the situation isn't going to improve. I don't have any answers, I don't know how to make people pay attention, and I can't make people read what they need to read in order to be thoroughly informed on any given subject. But I am fairly sure that this is the underlying problem with just about every political and economic problem we face today.
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I fact check things constantly, read a large number of sources from various persuasions, read books about history, science, politics, and economics in a more or less compulsive fashion, and so on. It is not even remotely clear that any of this has aided me in the economy, and it generally speaking has made me a more depressed and cynical person. More isolated, as well, because the things I'm interested in are not what most people care about.
I do it anyway, because I'm obsessed with learning about the big picture even when it comes at the expense of my well-being. Maybe this will somehow pay off, some day. But the moment, I see no reason to believe there is a personal incentive for most people to be well-informed. There is an incentive to learn narrow skills that are valuable to employers, but general knowledge about how the world works isn't useful at all. We don't really live in a world that values that.
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Grebulocities - I think I may have the same problem you do. What sometimes tempers the despair created by my compulsive curiosity about the big picture is a parallel curiosity about the inner world - the essence and mechanics of the human spirit. I don’t know why this is. Maybe looking at the big picture only exercises my logical faculties, and exploring our collective inner life exercises my empathy.
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Well said, if a person doesn't take the time to validate the information they use to form opinions; then they are responsible for the closing of their society.
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In 2002, the decay of the nation-state and its replacement by the market-state were described by Philip Bobbitt (Shield of Achilles, 2002). In 1996, Eric Hobsbawm (The Age of Extremes) wrote, as Cohen does, of the speed of modern communications and transport, and observed that "There was nothing in the logic of profit-making enterprise... to keep the manufacture of steel in Pennsylvania or the Ruhr forever." While the decrease in poverty world-wide is welcome, the weakening of what used to be the engine of world economic growth--America--is regrettable. Part of the reason for that is that the American economy is expected to grow more rapidly although much of the fuel for that growth, consumer spending, has been starved while the wealth flows upward. In America, the People were the Economy. Wishful thinking and brash boasting will not correct that.
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What do you do for a living, Des? that you think it is so unassailable?
There are no jobs that are "safe" anymore. The manufacturing jobs just went FIRST. They will not be the only jobs that are off-shored.
You can't take a man or woman's livelihood away, and then soothe them with B.S. about "education" or "liberal arts & culture". PEOPLE NEED THEIR JOBS. We did nothing to save jobs. Even today, any discussion about things that MIGHT help retain or get back jobs is greeted by the liberal left with derision or actual calls of "racism!" or "xenophobia!".
As long as you liberals care MORE about "the poor brown skinned peoples of the world" than you do about your own fellow Americans, your own nation and your own community ... don't expect anything to change, ever. Except to get worse.
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An excellent editorial. Many of the points made are exactly correct. But I do think one bit of data is missing or is it one bitcoin of data?
Not all those immigrating to the USA are just folks from the poor humbled masses. Many come with "diamonds in their pockets" I've been hearing this phrase more and more during the last few years. It is both true and it does have an effect.
I was informed about a residence in the DC area that sits next to a Kaplan educational center. It's a center that seems to specialize in preparing potential MD's or MD's for the USMLE's. One must pass these exams to become an MD or to attain a residency. Those that live there apparently "live like royalty" They don't need to work or stress over their meeting basic financial obligations. This is a significant advantage over many American medical students.
in other fields I've seen visa folks exit a Jumbo jet with a cellphone in their hands, and go to a high end apartment, then start a job once held by an American. Some young, gifted Americans are delivering Pizza's or driving for Uber rather than striving for a degree. You correctly mention that it's all about the corporation, but the corporation is becoming more and more, all about the CEO.
"recently, in 2017, an Oxfam study found that eight rich people, six of them Americans, own as much combined wealth as half the human race." Wiki
Above and beyond the immigration issue, the wealth inequality issue is growing and becoming dominant!
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Although I agree that inequality is becoming more pronounced, I looked at the Oxfam report released in Davos in 2017, and something seems not correct: https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp-econ.... Some of its opening points contradict each other. That chips away some credibility to it, which is detrimental to work toward a less unequal society.
One measure of inequality is the Gini coefficient (or index). The opening statement says that 8 people own as much as half the world, which implies that Gini could be at most 50%. The first bullet in the second page says that the richest 1% owns more wealth than the rest of the planet, which implies that the Gini is at least 50%. A paper on global inequality I just found https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality, talks about a global income Gini coefficient above 60%. Economist Piketty, in his book Capital in the 21st Century, documents that wealth inequality is higher than income inequality. Therefore we can expect wealth inequality to be above the 60% mark.
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Agree completely with Riff's comment.
Would like to add that there is often a strange incoherence or call it a blind spot in op-eds like these that warn of threats to liberal democracies and open society. They usually and correctly point out that globalization is benefitting transnationals/multinational companies and the monied elite but then jump and end up blaming the people for scapegoating immigrants, lack of education and "irrationality"("Their irrationality is a galvanizing force").
As long as the democratic center (centre conservatives, liberal as well as social democrats) does not get out of its LaLaLand, refuses to have a rigorous analysis and discussion about the (global and national) political economy, its impact on the life of people on the ground, and instead offers again and again a template-style blaming of the "uneducated", "irrational" people who seemingly don't know better, we will not see less political radicalism and authoritarianism but more.
(As a side note: how does Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar fit in here next to Poland and Trump's US? Myanmar hasn't been sliding into any illiberalism. It is authoritarian, controlled by a military elite since 50 years. As the military is not under civilian control, runs the home ministry and major parts of the economy, the current civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi is at best a fig leaf.)
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It's 1939 all over again, in there worst way.
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The world needs to learn what Americans have learned in the last year. Bully wannbe godkingemperor Trump is capable of moments of being "presidential" (whatever that is) but there is always a backlash, lots of backlashes. He hurts people the most after he's acted almost human for a change.
The Davos elite may have reason to cash in on this bubble, but they need to look to their own consciences and not join our Republican congress in enabling his destructive dehumanizing earthshattering (almost literally) agenda.
Roger Cohen provides an excellent list of his crimes against humanity. Do yourself a favor and don't join his enablers. Things are bad enough already, don't make them worse.
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We used to get all excited when he behaved himself. The school of hard knocks taught us different. Meanwhile, his followers are arming themselves, and too many of them are planning a war against reason and humanity.
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If we had had Trump instead of Johnson during the civil rights struggles of the 60s, we would have had the second civil war of our nation. Our Presidents have that much power, more than any head of any other democracy.
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I do not think America has learned much the last year. The most recent poll to ask showed Trump would still beat Hillary.
Most Americans can tell you who the Quarterback of the Patriots is, but cannot name their Congressional Delegation. That is a big part of the problem.
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Capitalism doesn't care how profits are distributed, just that they are made. Capitalism aways seeks out the lowest cost of production. Capitalism rewards growth and punishes stagnation.
Socialism doesn't care how profits are distributed. Socialism doesn't care about lowest cost of production. Socialism doesn't reward stagnation, but it certainly doesn't punish it.
Capitalism has always left its leftovers to suffer. There have always been masses of poor in capitalist societies, including ours. For a brief period, from WWII to about 1990, most enjoyed the widespread fruits of capitalism.
Then we had the Reagan/Thatcher revolution and everything went back to the way it was. One could argue that our society just returned to the natural order of the rich getting richer and the rest left struggling to get by.
But those that are struggling voted for their disparity. They continue to do so because they have been convinced that they don't want to pay for someone else's sustenance. What they forget to consider is that other people are paying for their's.
Massive deregulation, slashing taxes on the rich, passing laws that favor corporations over people, slashing education funding and research, cutting government programs got us into this mess. True, the government wastes money. But it also provides jobs, creates technology, educates people, ensures food safety and pays for your doctor.
We need to go backward in order to move forward.
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Correction. Socialism does care how profits are distributed. Sorry.
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Too many people confuse communism with socialsim. Thank you, Bruce.
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"One could argue that our society just returned to the natural order of the rich getting richer..."
This is accepted as the natural order because it has been with us for so long. You may have implied that. But it is actually the natural end result of unregulated corporate capitalism which is a win-lose casino . It will always result in a few big winners and millions of losers. A difference between the capitalist casino and a real casino is that the card-counters and cheats in the latter are thrown out. In the capitalist casino, they get to write the rules. Another difference is that if you don't visit a real casino you don't lose any money. In the corporate casino everyone but the inside cheaters loses, even if they never bet.
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