What’s behind the revolt against global integration? [STOPPING THE "ELITES"]

Washington Post ^ | April 10 | Lawrence Summers

[expat_panama]

Since the end of World War II, a broad consensus in support of global economic integration as a force for peace and prosperity has been a pillar of the international order. From global trade agreements to the European Union project; from the work of the Bretton Woods institutions to the removal of pervasive capital controls; from the vast expansion in foreign direct investment to major increases in the flow of people across borders, the overall direction has been ...

...more successful than could reasonably have been hoped. We have not had a war between major powers. Global standards of living have risen faster than at any point in history. And material progress has coincided with even more rapid progress in combating hunger, empowering women, promoting literacy and extending life. A world that will have more smartphones than adults within a few years is a world in which more is possible for more people than ever before.

...Yet a revolt against global integration is underway...

...One substantial part of what is behind the resistance is a lack of knowledge...

...The core of the revolt against global integration, though, is not ignorance. It is a sense — unfortunately not wholly unwarranted — that it is a project being carried out by elites for elites...

...Elites can continue on the current path of pursuing integration projects and defending existing integration, hoping to win enough popular suppor...

...Much more promising is this idea: The promotion of global integration can become a bottom-up rather than a top-down project. The emphasis can shift from promoting integration to managing its consequences. This would mean a shift from international trade agreements to international harmonization agreements, whereby issues such as labor rights and environmental protection would be central, while issues related to empowering foreign producers would be secondary...

[indthkr]

New World Order bump for later...

[Obadiah]

Everyone who loses a job because a factory moves abroad knows it; many who lose their jobs for local reasons blame globalization. But no one thanks international trade for the fact that their paycheck buys twice as much in clothes, toys and other goods as it otherwise would...

So those who are now unemployed because of off-shoring, or those who now have a job at one-third the salary should be grateful because their "paychecks" (those who still have one) can buy more toys.

Do these elitists even read the nonsense they peddle? Do they think everyone has been lobotomized? How insulting.

[Ray76]

A thousand points of light...

[Ray76]

> international harmonization agreements, whereby issues such as [] environmental protection would be central

Uh huh. Hence climate change scare mongering.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...So what, I do not care about the rest of the world's standards of living. I only care about the standard of living in the United States. I am not a citizen of the world..."

WHAT YOU SAID.

That's a fundamental difference between us and the Elites us: They see us not as free men but merely global serfs; they want to corral us all together so it's easier to control us, and to them, you and I have the same value as a primitive tribesman with a bone in his nose.

We're just human capital to them, and that makes them my enemy.

[expat_panama]

...material wellbeing is propped up by welfare. Culturally and morally we are in the pits...

Changes in material assets are physical objects and can be measured.  Since '45 both income and amassed wealth for the average American after adjusting for inflation has been doubling every three decades.  That kind of progress comes only from hard work, saying it comes from government redistribution is crazy. 

We don't measure and compare changes in moral and spiritual well being.  For that we just preach about how bad everyone else is and how holy we are.  I can say I'm better than you.  Sure, I can't prove it w/ numbers but I can say it and feel smug.  Maybe not, I don't feel smug at all when I talk that way, I just feel like a creep.

[T-Bone Texan]

Are you serious? The defective, corrupt, racist, misogynistic mess called Mexican culture is not compatible with the culture of a Western, developed country.

Mexico is full of primitive, tribal dullards

Canada IS a developed, Western country, and it’s filled with people like me, who are dullards.

[BipolarBob]

Agreed.

[expat_panama]

...the Mexican government allowed foreigners to freely move in...

--and they did a bad job of it.  We agree. 

It kind of sounds like you're almost saying (but afraid to actually say) that the roles are reversed now the U.S. is allowing "foreigners to freely move in" and just like in 1821 Texas we'll end up w/ an overwhelming majority of Mexicans in Texas and just like 1836 they'll resist a military coup in Washington by raising an American flag at the Alamo w/ the constitution's date 1787.

imho that seems pretty unlikely but if it did happen given my dislike for military dictatorships I might me tempted to join in..

[expat_panama]

Mexico is full of primitive, tribal dullards Canada IS a developed,

Some folks say that others don't, just like some like Mexican food and others eat at Tim Horton's.  That's all cheap talk which has never been my forte, I try to leave cheap talk for those that do it all the time and talk instead just hard cash; right now stock in CMG (Chipolte Mexican Grill) is falling, still up from where it was a few years ago while Tim Horton's got bought out by Burger King and now goes as QSR; doing pretty well since the merger...

 

[Cronos]

Not bullcrap. The factories in South Korea and Hong Kong were not built and given to the locals.